


Bad Medicine

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [23]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 77,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected reaction to necessary snakebite medication takes Jeremy on a long, strange trip through five days of hallucinations, involving killer zombies, invisible hamsters, and people with tentacles. Rachel, Karl, Susan, and others try to keep him from overreacting, and prevent Quarles from simply locking him up until he’s recovered.</p>
<p>This story is unfinished, but I really hope to finish it someday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

_Day One—Thursday_

Rachel was waiting for Jeremy in the Center’s ER, trying not to pace anxiously. She had everything ready, she hoped, if one could trust his assessment of his injuries and field treatment—which she wasn’t entirely certain she could. Still, he must’ve done _something_ right, or he wouldn’t have been alive to call it in.

One thing she _was_ unprepared for was him sauntering into the ER of his own accord, wearing a black leather jacket and _eyeliner_ of all things. Which looked d—n good, by the way.

“Jeremy?” she couldn’t help asking in surprise, foolish though it was.

“Hey, Dr. Ward,” he greeted in a bored tone. “What’s up?” And then he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and shoved it in his mouth.

“What the—have you been _smoking_?” Rachel demanded, snatching it away from him.

Jeremy made a noise of indignation, especially when she dug into his jacket pocket and grabbed the rest of the pack. “Chill out, babe,” he protested. “I’m immune to them.”

“Right. So why were you gonna light one up in the ER?” she accused, steering him to an exam table.

“Uh, that would be because I _wanted_ to,” he replied in an obnoxious tone. “J---s! You guys need a reason for everything around here?”

Rachel knew he was only acting in character from his mission so she tried to cut him some slack. “Okay, where is it?” she asked clinically, starting to push the jacket off his shoulders.

“Where’s what?” he asked with a lewd smirk. “I think you’re lookin’ in the wrong place.” He leaned into her, forcing her to back up slightly.

Rachel tried to keep him in place. “Did someone call the Supervisor?” she asked the room at large.

“Yes, Dr. Ward,” Roxy the nurse assured her. “Should I call Security?” She eyed Jeremy warily.

“No,” Rachel told her, giving Jeremy a narrow look. “I can handle Mr. Jacka-s here.”

“Handle me all you want,” he offered suggestively.

Rachel knew how to deal with guys with big egos. She giggled at him. “G-d, you sound like a moron,” she said affectionately. “Sit on the table.”

Jeremy sat, frowning. “Moron?” he repeated, insulted. She finally got the jacket off and saw the field dressing packed over part of his upper arm. “Sorry, didn’t realize you had such high freakin’ standards around here.” He lapsed into petulant silence, allowing Rachel to peel the bandages off.

There were two large puncture wounds beneath them, already healing. “How on Earth did you get bitten by a snake _there_?” she wanted to know, applying a new dressing. When he didn’t answer she prompted him with a look.

“Oh, should I speak now?” he asked sarcastically.

“Only when spoken to,” Rachel quipped. “Roxy, take a blood sample and send it to the lab.”

Jeremy jerked his arm away from her, though. “Hey, I’m all for two chicks at a time, but this was _not_ what I had in mind,” he complained.

Rachel snickered, which was not the reaction he’d been going for. “I cannot imagine what you were doing with this character in the New Mexico desert,” she admitted. “Let Roxy draw some blood before I get mad at you.”

“You might have to spank me,” he tried naughtily, but he let Roxy take the blood.

“Okay, now you kind of remind me of this boyfriend I had in med school, especially the guyliner,” Rachel told him with a smirk, checking the rest of his vitals. “Any other injuries I should look at? And please do not make any suggestive responses, Dr. Zhu is already writing a dissertation on us.”

Jeremy grimaced. “No, and you really know how to ruin the mood,” he accused. He snatched away the penlight she was bringing to his eyes. “ _Seriously_ , babe?” he demanded irritably.

Rachel rolled her eyes and tried to take it back, but he held it out of reach, seeming to enjoy her attempt at tussling with him. “Would it do any good for me to say, ‘Stand down, Agent Green’?” she questioned, not finding him so funny anymore.

“Sorry,” he replied in a not-sorry tone. “Voice-print coded.”

“Give it back, let me check your eyes.”

Jeremy sighed profoundly and handed the penlight back to her. “G-d, this place is so _lame_ ,” he complained in a put-upon tone. “Not you, though, Dr. Ward,” he added. “I know you know how to have fun.”

“Thanks,” she replied dryly. “Your eyes look okay. Dizziness, nausea, difficulty breathing?”

“No.”

“You’re sure you identified the snake correctly?” she checked. “And took the right antivenom?”

He gave her a look. “Babe, please. I’d be stone cold in the desert if I hadn’t.”

“Well, that would be sad,” Rachel replied flatly. “I’m going to start you on the follow-up drug. You’ll have to take one pill a day for five days.” She handed him the first one and a cup of water. “Sorry it’s kind of big. Think you can swallow it?”

Too late she realized what she’d said. “I think that’s _my_ line,” Jeremy quipped, tossing back the pill.

Rachel suppressed her laughter, not wanting him to join in and choke. “There might be some side effects,” she warned, after clearing her throat. “It’s pretty strong stuff. You might feel tired or kind of foggy. Let me know.”

“You’ll be the first,” he claimed. He tossed the cup carelessly over his shoulder and unexpectedly pulled Rachel closer. “How about we ditch this place, babe? We could grab a couple oranges, maybe hang out in a nice, dark ceiling duct somewhere.”

Rachel tried really hard not to grin and was not completely successful. It was like watching a badly misinterpreted, though still charming, version of Jeremy—maybe the way Shakespeare would feel if he could see Mel Gibson’s _Hamlet_. Though that was being generous with the ‘charming’ part.

“Well, maybe later, we could have a snack,” she allowed. “After they’ve—talked to you.” She thought better of saying the word ‘debriefed’ to him.

He was about to cajole further when an authoritative voice cut through the hum of the ER. “Agent Green.”

“Supervisor,” he replied, in a really snotty tone that left Rachel giggling naughtily. He appreciated this a little too much, certainly more than Wollstonecraft did as she turned a narrow gaze on Rachel.

“You’ve performed the urgent care, Dr. Ward?” the Supervisor ascertained.

Jeremy started to make a rude reply but Rachel prudently cut him off. “Yes, I have,” she assured her.

“Did you complete your mission successfully?” Wollstonecraft asked of Jeremy next.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he told her with a mocking little salute. He pulled a USB key out of his pocket and handed it to one of her large, stoic assistants. “Watch the dangle there, pal, it’s delicate.”

“Stand down, Agent Green,” the Supervisor ordered, and Rachel turned to watch the transformation. Jeremy rolled his head a few times like his neck was stiff and shook his shoulders, and then he was Jeremy again instead of a brash punk. Albeit still with the leather jacket and eyeliner. He just held himself entirely differently, was the best way Rachel could put it.

“Hello, Dr. Ward,” he greeted her again, in the tone and cadence she was familiar with. She noticed he didn’t let her go, though. “I’m sorry if I said something offensive to you.”

“No, it was mostly pretty funny,” she felt safe admitting. “Though I wouldn’t want to be around that guy for much longer.” Jeremy nodded in a satisfied way; sometimes, she thought, he worried that people would like his alter egos more than him. Maybe that was why they were often so obnoxious.

“Agent Green, report for initial debriefing,” Wollstonecraft prompted, and he finally hopped off the exam table, releasing Rachel only reluctantly.

“Let me know how that medication makes you feel,” she reminded him more seriously, and he nodded as he preceded Wollstonecraft out the door.

**

Rachel was in her office when her phone rang less than half an hour later. She recognized the bland, impersonal tones of a security monitor, though not the specific person. “ _Dr. Ward, could you please report to Briefing Room 3?_ ”

“Sure,” Rachel agreed, standing. “Where is that again?”

“ _Third floor, security zone_.”

“The whole building’s a security zone,” she couldn’t help noting as she left her office.

The security monitor seemed to be slightly taken aback at having an actual conversation. “ _Uh, it’s the yellow areas_ ,” he elaborated. “ _They’re to the left of the medical zone_.”

“Wait, what floor did you say again?” Rachel asked as she stood indecisively at the elevator.

“ _Third_ ,” the monitor repeated, and she pushed the correct button. “ _Do you want me to send someone to escort you, or--?_ ”

“No, I’m good,” Rachel assured him, exiting on the third floor. “Wait, when you said ‘left,’ what direction were you thinking of? Like, are we facing the building from outside, or—“

“ _I meant north_ ,” the monitor corrected, sounding slightly flustered now.

“North, huh,” Rachel repeated. “I’ll just look for some moss on the trees, then. Oh wait, I see something yellow.”

“ _Okay, good, so_ —“

“Oh, never mind,” Rachel reversed. “It was a spill. The janitor put some yellow caution tape up. Oh, maybe that’s why the security zone is yellow,” she mused as she continued down the hall. “Kind of the universal sign for ‘caution.’ Although, red probably would’ve worked as well.”

“ _Um_ ,” replied the monitor helplessly. “ _Do you need further directions, or_ —“

Rachel stopped at a guard station. “Hi, I’m looking for the yellow zone, or something?” she asked. The man blinked at her stonily and indicated the ID checks, which Rachel passed. “Oh, well, he let me in the door,” she relayed into the phone. “Are you still there?”

“ _Yes, still here_ ,” the monitor sighed.

“Hey, guys, am I in the security zone?” Rachel called to the room at large. “They say yes,” she repeated into the phone.

“ _Um, confirmed, you are in the security zone lobby_ ,” the monitor replied, struggling to sound more professional.

“Great!” Rachel said cheerfully. “What was the room again?”

“ _Briefing Room 3_ ,” the monitor told her again.

“Well, there’s 1 and 4,” Rachel conveyed, looking down the hall, “but I don’t—oh, okay, I see it. Thanks!”

“ _Are you sure?_ ” the monitor checked suspiciously.

“Well yeah.” Rachel gave the phone a slight grimace, as though it should be obvious. She could read a number on a door, after all. “Wait, is this a thing where I knock, or code in, or—“ The door opened to reveal a peeved-looking Quarles. “Oh, found the boss. Thanks for your help!” She hung up.

Quarles drew her into the room, which was small and empty and had a mirror-window into the next room, which was also small, and empty save for a table surrounded by chairs. The chairs had all been tipped forward against the table, their legs sticking out like spikes. Which seemed a little odd.

Wollstonecraft stood in the outer room, holding a folder and looking even more unamused than usual, which Rachel hadn’t thought was possible. “Dr. Ward, what medication did you give Green in the ER?” she wanted to know.

Uh-oh. “It’s an antivenom follow-up regimen,” she explained, not sure how clinical they wanted her to get. “He has to take it for five days… Is he having side effects?”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Quarles replied, in an irritated yet still world-weary tone.

Rachel stepped closer to the mirror-window and peered into the next room. “Oh, he’s under the table,” she realized in concern.

“Forting,” Quarles informed her.

“Right. What symptoms did he display?” She glanced between the two of them.

“A few minutes into the debriefing, he became distracted, then disoriented, then agitated,” Wollstonecraft listed flatly. “I left. Then he asked for you and started rearranging the furniture.”

“Is this normal for this medication?” Quarles quizzed her. He was pretty sure what the answer was.

“Well, the known side effects are fatigue and impaired cognitive function,” Rachel informed him. “Standard ‘don’t operate heavy machinery’ stuff. He may not be the sort of patient the FDA had in mind,” she allowed dryly.

“Would you go talk to him, please?” Quarles pushed. “We still have some questions to ask him.”

Rachel shrugged nonchalantly and Wollstonecraft keyed open the door for her. It was shut quickly behind her. “Jeremy,” she began, ducking her head to look in between the chairs. “Jeremy, how do you feel?”

“Dr. Ward?” He sounded apprehensive.

“Can you come out of there?” she coaxed him.

“No,” he refused. “You can come in, though.”

“Okay, well, thanks,” Rachel replied, trying not to sound too sarcastic as she got down on the floor. And her sister wondered how the knees of her suits got all scuffed up.

Jeremy pushed one of the chairs aside just enough for Rachel to crawl past, then immediately pulled it back into place. It was not particularly dark or warm under the table, but she supposed it was the best he could do to create a safe space for himself.

He looked okay, she thought, and didn’t shy away from her hand on his forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” she decided, going through the list of rarer side effects in her mind. “Do you feel dizzy or nauseous?”

“No.”

“Difficulty swallowing, breathing?”

“No.”

“Fatigue? Fuzziness?”

“A little, I guess,” he decided, though he didn’t seem too perturbed by them.

Rachel sat back, stumped. “Well then, what are you doing under this table?”

“Hiding from the dinosaurs,” Jeremy informed her matter-of-factly.

Rachel blinked at him. “Are you referring to Quarles and—“ she suggested dubiously.

“No, of course not,” Jeremy corrected her, as though she were being ridiculous. “You must have come right past them,” he went on. “Didn’t you see them?”

“Like, actual dinosaurs?” Rachel checked slowly. “T. rex, velociraptor, brontosaurus, all that?”

“I didn’t stop to note the species,” Jeremy shrugged. “Even herbivores could do considerable damage due to their large size. We’re safer under here.”

Rachel stared at him for a long moment. This could be very, very bad. Quarles’s voice cut in over the intercom. “ _Is he talking about dinosaurs?_ ” he demanded. Jeremy didn’t seem to notice.

“Jeremy, dinosaurs are extinct,” Rachel told him evenly. “And, the large ones wouldn’t even fit into this room.”

“Well, I saw them,” Jeremy insisted. When Rachel didn’t reply he took a quick look beyond the table. “Oh, maybe they’re gone now.”

Rachel nodded. “Can we get out from under the table now?”

“Sure, I guess.” Jeremy pushed a chair out of the way and crawled out, then helped Rachel up. He scanned all corners of the room, including the ceiling. “Yeah, they’re gone,” he confirmed.

“ _Please do not tell me one of my agents is having hallucinations_ ,” Quarles warned over the intercom.

“It certainly looks like it,” Rachel was forced to admit. Seeing or hearing things that weren’t there was alarming enough in an ordinary person; in an agent with superhuman speed and strength, it could be very dangerous.

“But I saw the—“ Jeremy began to protest. Then he frowned. “But that doesn’t really make sense,” he decided slowly.

“Let’s sit down,” Rachel suggested, righting two of the chairs.

Before she could sit, Jeremy grabbed her arm to stop her. “Don’t, there’s—“ He blinked and looked again, then released her. “It’s okay,” he finished in a small, troubled voice.

They both sat and Rachel held out her hand. “Give me your hand,” she encouraged, and he did so slowly. She clasped it with her other one. “Now Jeremy, I want you to listen to me very closely,” she said seriously, and he nodded. “You’re having hallucinations. It’s a side effect of the medicine I gave you. You with me so far?”

“Yes, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy agreed. “I didn’t know you spoke Chinese.”

“I don’t,” Rachel corrected steadily. “Repeat back what I just told you.” Jeremy began to respond in Chinese. “In English,” Rachel clarified.

“Oh. You said I was hallucinating because of the medicine you gave me,” Jeremy summarized. “The snakebite medicine, right?”

“That’s right,” Rachel agreed. “So I want you to be _very careful_ about reacting to things, because they might not be real—“ His eyes strayed repeatedly to the tabletop. “Jeremy,” she said firmly, regaining his focus. “There’s nothing on the table. If you react to something that isn’t real, you might hurt yourself or someone else.” His eyes widened and his breathing quickened as he started at her. “What do you think you see?” she questioned.

“Do you have a rat on your head?” Jeremy inquired tensely.

“No,” Rachel replied firmly. “What might happen if you thought it was real and tried to grab it?”

“I might hurt you,” Jeremy nodded seriously.

“That’s right. So what are you going to do?” she asked.

“Be careful,” Jeremy promised. He relaxed as, presumably, the rat vanished. “This is quite novel,” he decided, with mild interest. “It’s like a dream, where everything makes sense until you wake up.”

“Okay,” Rachel acknowledged, having no frame of reference herself. She pulled her hands away from him gently. “Can you wait here for a few minutes?”

“Yes, Dr. Ward.”

She left him reluctantly and went back to the outer room, shutting the door firmly and turning off the intercom. “Hallucinations?” Quarles hissed angrily. “ _Really?_ Get him off that medicine.”

“Well, I can’t do that,” Rachel refused, though she wished she could. “He needs to take it for five days to make sure the venom is out of his system. There’s no alternate treatment.”

“I cannot have an agent—“ Jeremy climbed up on top of the table and moved his hands above his head as though he were attaching something to the ceiling. “—an agent who is not in full command of their mental faculties,” Quarles insisted. “One misfiring neuron and he thinks we’re all hostiles who need to be killed.” On the table, Jeremy paused suddenly, looked around in confusion, and jumped back down.

“If you can’t stop the treatment, sedate him,” Wollstonecraft suggested.

Rachel shook her head immediately. “Drug interactions.”

“Then lock him up in restraints.”

Rachel did not approve of this idea, either. “I would hate to do that to him,” she admitted, watching him sit back down quietly.

The other two rolled their eyes. “It would be for his own safety,” Quarles pointed out.

“Well, he hasn’t really done anything harmful yet,” Rachel argued. Jeremy started to reach out for something, paused, and then with great effort drew his hand back to himself. “Maybe they won’t be too bad.”

“Yes, maybe they’ll be mild until they _aren’t_ and he snaps someone’s neck,” Quarles countered darkly.

“Well, we could have him stay in his room,” Rachel compromised. “At least he would be comfortable there.”

“Fine,” Quarles agreed shortly. “You’re responsible for getting him there.”

“I still have questions for him,” Wollstonecraft reminded them.

“You might want to wait on those,” Rachel replied delicately. Inside the other room, Jeremy carefully drew his feet up onto the chair, staring at the floor in concern. “I’m not sure they’d get rational answers right now.”

Wollstonecraft gave Rachel a look that clearly indicated she felt this was all her fault, but since she didn’t actually _say_ anything, Rachel just met her gaze coolly. Sensing she would not get what she wanted—surely a rare occurrence for her—Wollstonecraft turned on her heel to leave. “Director.”

“Supervisor,” he acknowledged. Then, “Doctor?”

Rachel sighed and opened the door to the inner room again. Jeremy looked up suddenly and drew a sharp breath as she started to step on the tiles. “The floor—“ She stopped, inches into the room, and waited for him to adjust. “Oh. I guess it’s okay.”

“Good. Come on,” she directed. “You’re gonna go back to your room now.”

“And you’re going to _stay_ there,” Quarles ordered, as Jeremy took Rachel’s outstretched hand and gingerly skipped over the floor. “Until further notice. Is that understood?”

“Sorry, I don’t speak much Quechua,” Jeremy shrugged blankly. “Should I learn it? Is that my new mission?”

“G-d,” Quarles sighed in disgust.

“The Director said you were to stay in your room until further notice,” Rachel repeated quickly, bringing Jeremy out into the hall.

“I’m supposed to go see Dr. Zhu,” he protested mildly, and she blinked at him in surprise. “I wanted to see what kind of creature she turned into.”

“Yeah, I think we’re gonna put that off for a while,” Rachel decided. Although the psychiatrist would probably be sad she missed an opportunity to mess with Jeremy’s mind even more. “Hey, which way is out?” Rachel asked, looking around. “I had a really hard time finding this place.”

“This way,” Jeremy directed. Rachel hesitated and gave him a look. “It’s right,” he assured her. “There’s just a lot of hedgehogs in the way.” Jeremy stepped carefully down the hallway and through the lobby, avoiding the hedgehogs.

They managed to get past the unamused guard without trouble—so many people here lacked a sense of humor, Rachel had noticed—and Director Quarles gave her one last narrow look before he set off in the opposite direction. He had not offered to send any guards to help Rachel escort Jeremy to his room—she probably would’ve shrugged them off as unnecessary, but the _offer_ would’ve been nice. Although Jeremy seemed to be coming along quietly at the moment, with only the occasional darting glance or twitch of his hand in hers.

He froze at the elevator, though, staring through the open doors like it was the gaping maw of a whale. Maybe to him it was. “Can we take the stairs?” he suggested.

“Sure,” Rachel agreed. Since they were heading down.

The agents’ rooms were in a sub-basement, the better to keep them contained, Rachel supposed. Getting _in_ to the resident zone was relatively easy, it was getting _out_ that was difficult. Though with amenities like the gym and cafeteria upstairs, the agents didn’t really tend to spend much time in their rooms unless they were sleeping.

“Somewhere, over the rainbow,” Jeremy suddenly began to sing, “way up high, there’s a land that I’ve heard of, once in a lullaby.” His voice echoed off the concrete of the stairwell. He was a good singer, though, and Rachel glanced at him questioningly when he stopped. “Sorry, that seemed appropriate a moment ago,” he told her, a bit sheepishly.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “You’re doing really well. But you’ll have to stay in your room for a few days,” she reiterated, “to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

“Or hurt anyone else,” Jeremy added, his tone slightly sad. Rachel patted his shoulder with her free hand.

They made it down another couple of flights without incident. Then Jeremy started looking around quickly and his muscles tensed. His grip on Rachel’s hand became tighter, though not dangerously so. “Jeremy, what’s wrong?” she asked him.

He stopped and closed his eyes. “Can I take off my jacket?” he asked, speaking so fast the words all ran together.

“Why don’t you stand still and let me do it?” Rachel suggested and he nodded tightly. He released her hand and she pushed the jacket off his shoulders. “Don’t move,” she reminded him, when his arms started to shake the sleeves loose. She pulled the jacket off the rest of the way and took his hand again, or rather his wrist because his hand was clenched into a fist. “Okay, it’s off,” she prompted him. “Do you feel better?”

Jeremy opened his eyes and looked at the jacket draped over her arm. He started to reach for it, then froze in place. “Can I have it?” he asked.

“Yes, here you go.” Rachel hooked the collar over his immobile hand. “I’m glad you’re being careful.”

Jeremy nodded, preoccupied. “I’m going to leave this here,” he decided and he started to drop the jacket on the floor. “Is that okay?” he asked Rachel hesitantly.

“Sure, go ahead,” she allowed, now intensely curious what he thought the jacket was. “It’s fine.” Unnecessary, but unlikely to harm anyone, at least.

Jeremy set the coat gently on the floor. “Can we hurry down the stairs now?” he asked urgently.

“We’re not gonna hurry,” Rachel told him firmly, “because it’s just a jacket, and not anything dangerous.” Jeremy looked extremely doubtful of this assessment, but he took what he could get and accompanied Rachel down the stairs at a normal pace.

And then near the foot of the stairs he couldn’t stand it anymore and he grabbed Rachel, diving for the corner of the landing and covering her protectively. Seconds ticked by as whatever he was waiting for failed to occur, and he slowly looked up. Then his eyes slid nervously to Rachel, who gave him an unimpressed look in return.

“I’m just going to check something,” Jeremy told her quickly, scrambling to his feet. He went back up to the previous landing where he’d left the jacket. “Oh, it’s just a jacket,” he reported, and Rachel sighed. “I’m just going to leave it here, though.”

“Okay,” Rachel acknowledged. She started to stand and Jeremy hurried down the stairs to help her up.

He leaned down to examine the red spots on her knees where she’d hit the floor. “Sorry, Dr. Ward,” he told her guiltily.

She resisted the urge to tell him it was okay. “This is what I meant about being careful how you react to things,” she said instead.

“I thought it was a bomb,” Jeremy explained. “I couldn’t _not_ react to a bomb.”

Rachel did not let this excuse sway her. “You could’ve _asked_ me if it was a bomb,” she pointed out.

“I wasn’t sure you had the necessary expertise to make that judgment,” he claimed.

“Come on,” Rachel sighed, taking his hand again.

Jeremy tried hard to control his responses and they made it to the door to the resident zone. Rachel was not down on this level very often, but the white lab coat was explanation enough for most people and she swiped her ID card and fingerprint with little interest from Eduardo the guard. Then it was Jeremy’s turn to have his finger scanned and he hesitated. Rachel bit her tongue while he deliberated.

“Jeremy?” prompted Eduardo.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Jeremy asked Rachel anxiously. The guard’s eyes flickered over to her.

“He’s sick,” she explained quickly. “Yes, it’s okay. Go ahead and put your finger down.”

With great determination Jeremy pressed his finger on the scanner, closing his eyes tightly. As soon as it beeped he yanked his hand away and stared at it. “Okay?” Rachel checked with him.

“I guess,” he replied, without conviction. She pulled him through the gate before he could change his mind.

The hallway in the resident zone was narrow and dim, with a row of heavy doors on one side that reminded Rachel somewhat of a high-security prison. Which it could be, she supposed, if they ever felt the need to confine the agents down here—everything could be locked up tight. She tried not to think about it.

Jeremy suddenly froze in place. “The floor,” he said in alarm.

“There’s nothing wrong with the floor,” Rachel tried to tell him.

“But it—“

She gave him a look, trying to be patient. “Jeremy. There’s nothing wrong with the floor.” She took a couple small steps and tugged gently on his hand.

He was unconvinced. “What if you just can’t see it?” he suggested reasonably. “My eyes are more sensitive than yours. I also have a wider visual range.”

“Don’t brag,” she told him, even though he wasn’t really. “The floor is fine, Jeremy, really. Come on.” Pulling on him was like trying to shift a ship’s anchor. “Well, let go, then,” Rachel told him. “I’ll walk across the floor to show you it’s okay.”

This did not meet with his approval, either. “You might get hurt,” he decided, drawing her back to his side with careful but irresistible force.

“Okay. Jeremy, do you recognize where we are?” Rachel asked, trying not to sound patronizing.

His eyes narrowed slightly, indicating she’d failed. “Yes. We’re in the resident zone. When David Baker went rogue they electrified the floor so he couldn’t escape.” Which meant, naturally, that anything he thought he saw on the floor now was perfectly reasonable.

Eduardo the guard leaned over his desk. “Any trouble over there?” he asked.

“No, it’s okay,” Jeremy assured him. “Except the floor has turned into poisonous clouds.”

“He’s sick,” Rachel repeated. “Well, what do you want to do, then?” she asked Jeremy. “Just stand here?”

He was giving it considerable thought. “The poison won’t hurt us unless we step on it,” he decided, gazing up at the ceiling speculatively.

“We are not playing Tarzan and swinging over the poison clouds,” Rachel insisted. “Er, floor.”

Jeremy was nothing if not resourceful. “Eduardo, which other agents are here?”

The guard looked at his list of people who’d entered but not exited. “Lee, Taylor, Perez, Black, Miller, Lund—“

Jeremy nodded. “Karl!” he shouted, his voice echoing off the walls. Rachel winced at the volume. “KARL!!”

One of the doors slid open and Karl stuck his head out warily. “What.”

“Come here,” Jeremy directed. “I need your help.”

If Karl sighed, he would’ve heaved a large one right then. But he left his room and strode down the hallway towards them. “What,” he repeated without enthusiasm, stopping in front of them.

“Well, the poison clouds didn’t kill Karl,” Jeremy noted scientifically, and Rachel sighed _and_ rolled her eyes. “So maybe it’s okay.”

Karl’s gaze flickered over to Rachel questioningly. “Jeremy is suffering from hallucinations due to a medicine he’s taking,” she explained to Karl. “So whatever he says for the next few days, just—be careful. He might not be in touch with reality.” Karl’s expression said, so clearly, that this wasn’t all that different from normal, in his opinion. “Can we please go to your room now, Jeremy?” she pressed.

“Oh, sure,” he agreed, as though it were no big deal. But then as he began to walk by Karl, he stopped and stared, eyes widening in a way that Rachel now realized led only to trouble.

She tried to hurry him along. “Jeremy, come on—“

He darted away, circling a bemused Karl with amazement in his eyes, though fortunately not fear. “Wow,” he declared, then he reached up towards Karl’s back and yanked at some imaginary thing. “Did that hurt?” he wanted to know.

“You didn’t do anything,” Karl informed him.

“I pulled off one of your feathers!” Jeremy corrected. He waved the invisible feather in the air and stroked it with his finger.

Karl turned to Rachel. “I could punch him in the face for you,” he offered blandly.

“No, thank you,” Rachel told him quickly. “I appreciate your tolerance, though, Karl. He’ll have to take the medicine for five days, then after that he should be fine.”

“That would be nice,” Karl deadpanned, his tone implying he thought just as little of Jeremy’s ‘fine’ state of mind.

“Let’s go,” Rachel insisted to Jeremy, as he waved the imaginary feather in the air. Fortunately his room was only a few feet away. After a moment he stopped waving his hand around and stared at it in confusion, as though wondering why he’d been doing that. Then he shrugged and continued along quietly.

“Fingerprint scan,” Rachel reminded him as they stood at the door to his room, and he started a little, apparently lost in thought, but pressed his finger to the scanner without complaint. The door hissed open and Rachel guided them inside. The agents’ living quarters were small and sparse, more like a hotel room. There was a bed, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen area, and some open floor space for exercising, and that was about it. They didn’t exactly accumulate a lot of personal possessions.

“Okay,” Rachel said, setting Jeremy down on the bed. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep, tiger?” she suggested. He gazed around the room as though it was foreign to him, then turned his eyes on her with a slightly plaintive look. Feeling bad Rachel sat down on the bed and put her arm around his shoulder. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” she assured him. “I know it’s scary, but you just need to be careful for a few days, and then it will be over.” She hoped. He nodded mutely. “Now you need to stay in your room, okay? You have something to eat here?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll come to see you first thing tomorrow morning and bring you breakfast,” Rachel promised. She wasn’t sure he was really listening, though, because he’d started staring intently at her chest. She resisted the urge to cross her arms. “Jeremy.”

He turned away abruptly. “Well, I _know_ those aren’t real,” he decided.

“Honestly,” Rachel muttered, though she realized he didn’t have control over what he was seeing. She stood reluctantly. “So you’re going to stay here, until I come to see you in the morning,” she reiterated. “Repeat that. In English,” she added, when he started to respond in what might have been Russian.

“You’re going to come see me in the morning, and bring me breakfast,” Jeremy acknowledged. “And until then I should stay here. Can I have fried marmoset for breakfast?”

“You can _imagine_ it’s fried marmoset,” Rachel compromised.

“That will probably work,” Jeremy agreed.

“Okay. Get some sleep,” Rachel said one more time, before she left.

**

She was packing up to leave work that evening when her phone rang. “Dr. Ward.”

“ _Jeremy Green’s out of his room, Doctor_ ,” the security monitor informed her, and Rachel sighed. “ _He seems calm right now so we didn’t want to put guards on him_.”

“Thank you,” Rachel told him, heading for her office door. “Where is he?”

“ _He’s just entered the cafeteria_ ,” the monitor reported. “ _Oh, and, uh, he’s naked, so_ —“

Rachel stopped and backtracked, grabbing some scrubs from her exam room. Someday the things that happened at work would cease to surprise her. “Okay. Thanks.”

She went down to the cafeteria, where a number of people were picking up dinner and occasionally glancing, with expressions ranging from amusement to nervousness, over towards the couches near the window wall. Jeremy sat there, quietly eating a bowl of cereal, completely unconcerned with his nakedness.

His eyes lit up when he saw Rachel. “Good morning, Dr. Ward!”

“It’s not morning, Jeremy,” she corrected patiently. “It’s only been about three hours since I saw you last.”

“Oh. Okay.” He didn’t mind, as long as he got to see her.

“I told you to stay in your room,” she reminded him, though it was pretty clear he was not working with the full set of Legos at the moment.

Indeed, his response was confusion even as he looked around. “I _am_ in my room,” Jeremy asserted. A small amount of doubt was beginning to creep in, however.

Rachel shook her head. “You’re also not wearing any clothes,” she added.

“Well, I knew that.”

“Yeah, I know it doesn’t bother _you_ , but spare the rest of us and put these on,” Rachel instructed, handing him the scrubs.

Jeremy set his cereal aside and dressed without rush. Rachel knew he still only saw the interior of his own room but was trusting her words instead, and that was a huge leap for him. So she tried not to make a big deal out of it.

“Am I dressed now?” Jeremy checked.

“Yes,” Rachel assured him. “Come on, back to your room.” She held out her hand and he took it slowly, carefully.

“Should I be worried about the dragon?” Jeremy inquired as they crossed the cafeteria towards the exit.

“No, just ignore it.”

“Okay. It seems friendly anyway.”

They were halfway down the hall when Jeremy slowed and looked around, blinking rapidly. “How did we get _here_?” he wanted to know, reorienting himself. “I was just in my—I wasn’t in my room, was I?” he realized.

Rachel shook her head. “No, you were in the cafeteria,” she confirmed.

“I _thought_ I was in my room,” he explained.

“I know,” Rachel agreed. “Can we take the elevator this time?”

Jeremy hesitated at the threshold. “Do you think it’s safe?” he questioned worriedly.

“Do you think it’s _not_ safe?” Rachel wanted to know, letting the doors close without them inside.

“What if I see something that isn’t really there and I react,” Jeremy wondered with concern, “and you’re trapped in there with me and no one can get to us?”

Rachel smiled at him reassuringly, but had to admit he had a point. Probably being with him in the elevator was no more dangerous than being in close proximity to him anywhere else, but if it bothered him more, it would be better to avoid it. He was under enough stress as it was.

“Let’s take the stairs,” she suggested.

They made it all the way down to the resident zone with only a few incidents, mostly Jeremy insisting that he _had_ to descend a staircase by hanging onto the outer railings or hopping on one foot. Rachel let those go since they didn’t affect anyone else.

“I’m going to have to lock you in your room this time,” she warned him.

“You’ve said that twice already.”

“I didn’t want you to forget.”

“I’m experiencing hallucinations, not short-term memory loss,” Jeremy pointed out pragmatically. “Though, if you don’t mind me saying so, your accent could use improvement.”

“No offense taken,” Rachel assured him.

They reached the guard station for the second time that afternoon and Eduardo looked up from his Kindle. “I’m putting a lock on Jeremy Green,” Rachel informed him once they’d passed through. “He doesn’t leave this zone until further notice.”

Eduardo entered the information and Rachel authorized it. “Hope you get better soon, Jeremy,” he said, with some regret.

Jeremy nodded. “I hope you turn back into a human soon,” he offered in kind.

“Okay.”

“By the way,” Rachel asked curiously, as Jeremy danced around at the end of their outstretched arms, “was he naked when he came by here a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah,” Eduardo shrugged. Rachel blinked at him. “Doc, you’ve got no idea the kind of weird s—t that happens down here,” he insisted. “Walking out the door naked barely registers.”

Rachel took his word for it. “But he did the fingerprint scan?” Jeremy would’ve faced several of those to get to the cafeteria.

Eduardo nodded. “But he didn’t seem to hear me when I spoke to him.”

“Okay, thanks,” Rachel told him. Maybe fingerprint scans had become so automatic for the agents that they barely even noticed doing them.

Jeremy tugged lightly on her hand. “Dr. Ward! Do you see all the fish?” He was, incongruously, staring up at the ceiling. “They’re so beautiful.”

For a second Rachel wished she could see what he was seeing, because indeed there seemed to be something wondrous and amazing reflected in his eyes. “Are they flying fish?” she asked indulgently.

“Yes, they’re flying—“ And then suddenly his expression changed, eyes widening with alarm. “They’re not fish, they’re—“

“Jeremy, calm down,” Rachel ordered firmly, stepping into his line of sight. “They’re not real. Whatever you see, they’re not real.”

Jeremy’s eyes flickered between her face and whatever terrifying thing he thought he saw above them. “Can we please duck?” he asked urgently.

“No,” Rachel denied.

“Can you please come here?” he tried.

“Okay,” she allowed, letting him embrace her, “but don’t squeeze too hard.”

Jeremy wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, trying to shield her from whatever he thought he was coming. His body tensed in anticipation and he ducked his head against her shoulder. After a long moment he began to relax and looked all around the hallway in confusion.

“Did I squeeze too hard?” he wanted to know.

“No, you did well,” Rachel assured him. “What did you think you saw?”

Jeremy looked mildly shaken, which was alarming in itself. “You don’t want to know,” he judged. “This sensation is very vivid.”

“I know, tiger, I’m sorry,” Rachel sighed as they went to his room. “I didn’t know the medicine would affect you this way. But there’s not really anything else we can do. We have to make sure the venom is out or it could damage some of your internal organs.”

“They would probably heal,” Jeremy pointed out, sitting back down on his bed.

“I don’t want to rely on that,” Rachel countered, looking around. “Do you have a piece of paper? Oh, I’ve got my scrip pad,” she remembered, pulling it from her pocket. “I’m writing you a note, see?” She let him examine it.

“’Stay in your room,’” he read. “You should sign it.”

She did so. “Okay, now I’m going to put this up on the door here,” she decided. He helpfully produced a magnet. “Thank you. So when you wake up next, you’ll see the note and you’ll stay here,” Rachel reasoned.

“Plus the door will be locked,” Jeremy added. “And none of the checkpoints will let me through.”

“Right, that’s a lot of clues that mean, ‘stay in your room,’” she reiterated. “Now try to get some more sleep, okay, Jeremy?” She patted his shoulder. “That will make this go faster.” He nodded dutifully and Rachel stepped out into the hall, watching his face as the door slid shut between them. It reminded her of the family dog whenever they had to kennel him.

Rachel shook that thought from her head and quickly programmed the door to not let him open it. Then another thought occurred to her and she added the further restriction that _no_ agent could open the door, from either side. She could imagine Jeremy somehow communicating with one of the others and convincing them to let him out. She decided against restricting it further, though—in the unlikely event of an emergency, she didn’t want staff to have any trouble reaching him. Then she walked back down the hallway, saying good-bye to Eduardo and hoping she had a peaceful night with no emergency calls.


	2. Day Two

_Day Two—Friday_

It was a peaceful night with no emergency calls, which Rachel could hardly believe. She even called in first thing upon waking and ascertained that Jeremy was indeed still in his room, alive and moving around and apparently fine.

Rachel arrived at work around eight per usual, resisting the urge to get there early, and went through all the normal checkpoints. Jenny handed her the mail and some coffee, and she was just settling into her morning routine when the alarms started.

It was her cell phone first, then the lockdown alarm, only it didn’t seem like her office area was actually locking down like it should. “ _Dr. Ward?_ ” the security monitor on the phone said. “ _Jeremy Green has left his room and is headed in your direction_.”

“What? How did he get out of his room?” Rachel demanded. She hovered in the outer office, peering out her unsealed door into the hall while Jenny waited nervously inside the exam room, ready to call to her should the blast doors actually start to close.

“ _We’re still working on that_ ,” the monitor admitted.

“Is that why you called a lockdown?” she wanted to know. “Is Jeremy okay? Is he hurting anyone?”

“ _He’s_ _broken past several checkpoints and his intentions are unclear_ ,” the monitor pointed out. “ _We’ve sent the guards after him as a precaution_.”

“They should _not_ tranq him,” Rachel ordered urgently. “Tell them that right now. No tranquilizer.”

“ _Yes, Doctor_ ,” and he actually seemed to be doing it.

“He’s on this medication,” Rachel explained, even though it probably wasn’t necessary, “and the tranquilizer could interact with it. Also he’s having hallucinations, so that’s probably why he’s acting strange. Where is he now?”

“ _Green is entering the medical zone, third floor_ ,” the monitor conveyed to her. “ _Guards are in pursuit. Definitely heading in your direction_.”

“Well, couldn’t you just call the guards off?” Rachel suggested, knowing how unlikely this was. “I mean, he’s probably just trying to visit me, and he’s only running because he’s being chased.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “ _Director Quarles says no_ ,” the monitor reported.

Big surprise. “Well, thanks for asking,” Rachel sighed. “Hey, did you know my office didn’t actually lock down?” she added, sticking her head out into the hallway. “So I should be seeing him any second now.”

“ _Your office didn’t_ —“ The monitor cut himself off in the middle of his surprised repetition and, Rachel imagined, began furiously typing at his computer. “ _The automatic lockdown command has been overridden_ ,” he announced with some frustration.

“Gee, I wonder who did that,” she replied dryly, a commotion in the hallway luring her out further. “Oh, there he is, I see him.” Jeremy was racing inhumanly fast down the hallway towards her, occasionally boosting his lead over a squadron of guards by propelling himself off the walls and ceiling.

Rachel ducked back into the outer office and set the door to stay open. “Jenny, open the exam room door,” she called. “And stand back.”

“Dr. Ward!” Jeremy shouted from down the hall.

“It’s okay, Jeremy!” she yelled back. “You can come in.” She hoped, faintly, that this permission would keep the guards from chasing him so hard, but there was little chance of that.

The thumping of multiple footsteps thundered in the hallway. Then there was a crash of some kind, but Rachel didn’t dare look out to see what was going on, for fear of being run over. Jeremy crossed the threshold of the outer office suddenly and was immediately tackled to the ground with a painful-sounding _whump_ by several guards.

“Okay, stop it, he’s down,” Rachel ordered, once the dust settled. “Get off him.” The dogpile did not entangle itself fast enough for her. “Move. Get off. He’s not even moving! If I find _one bruise_ on him—“ she threatened.

“I’m sure I’ll have bruises from falling,” Jeremy insisted, his muffled voice rising from underneath someone.

“Those may or may not count,” Rachel refused to concede. She was well aware that none of the chasing or bruising would’ve happened if he’d done as he was told and stayed in his room. “Okay, tiger, can you get up?” Jeremy popped back up to his feet more readily than someone who’d just been knocked over like that should be able to—more quickly than the guards who’d tackled him, certainly. “What are you doing here?” A few of the guards lingered around the edges and she declined to send them away, waiting to hear Jeremy’s answer first.

He reached into his pocket. “You left me this note,” he revealed, pulling it out. “So when you came into work today, I brought it to you.”

This explanation seemed suitable, and even satisfying, to Jeremy. Not so much to Rachel. “What does the note say?” she prompted coolly.

“It says, ‘Stay in your room,’” Jeremy read. “And then you signed it. It’s from your scrip pad.”

Rachel gave him a steady look. “And what part of that note suggests you should have _broken out of your room_ to bring it to me?”

“Well, see, it’s in code—“ Jeremy began, then took in her expression. “It’s _not_ in code?”

“No.”

“But you left me a magnet!” he protested, as though that accounted for everything.

“ _You_ handed me the magnet to put the note on the door,” Rachel countered, then frowned. “Don’t you remember that happening?”

“I ‘remember’ four different scenarios regarding the magnet,” Jeremy replied, thoroughly unimpressed with the situation.

Rachel sighed and snatched the note away from him. A lot of good _that_ had done. “Okay, thank you, you can go,” she told the guards.

“Are you going to send me back to my room?” Jeremy asked her. He was not in favor of this idea. “I don’t like being there by myself. I didn’t do anything wrong.” He sounded slightly irritable.

“I know you didn’t,” Rachel agreed with resignation. “So much for the security around here, though,” she added in a lighter tone. “You must’ve blown through half a dozen checkpoints and locked doors to get here. How’d you manage that?”

“I’m good,” Jeremy informed her simply. Then, “Also, the pygmy shrews helped.”

“Go show Jenny your bruises,” Rachel told him as her phone rang. She was not surprised to see it was the Director. “Hello, sir.”

“ _I don’t even know what to say, Dr. Ward_ ,” Quarles began, sounding like he actually had plenty.

“I don’t either, sir,” Rachel claimed. “Except I can’t take him off the medication.”

“ _If you won’t take him off the medication_ ”—Rachel noticed the change in verb there—“ _we may have to put him in a secure containment facility for the next few days_ ,” Quarles threatened.

“Would that be _more_ secure than his quarters and the path to my office, sir?” Rachel asked, trying not to sound sarcastic.

She did not entirely succeed. “ _Yes, it would, Dr. Ward_ ,” Quarles assured her frostily. “ _Believe me, we are working on determining how he overrode the lock on his room_.” Rachel felt a little sorry for whoever had been assigned that task. “ _It would be nice if he could tell us, but I’m assuming from the pygmy shrews comment there would be no point in asking_.”

“Not right now, sir,” Rachel confirmed. She glanced into the exam room and saw that everything seemed to be going alright, except for Jeremy constantly sticking out his tongue. “He would be very unhappy in secure containment, sir,” she added, hoping this was obvious and undesired. “It’s not really his fault he’s acting this way.”

“ _And whose fault is it, Dr. Ward?_ ”

“The snake’s,” she shot back. She was not going to take the blame for something that was medically necessary. She could practically feel Quarles’s cold stare boring into her and gazed back at the camera unflinchingly.

“ _That’s the back-up plan_ ,” he warned her, which did not sound at all like a concession. “You _keep him under control. Or he goes in a box_.” He hung up.

Rachel let out a long breath and dropped the phone back in her pocket. She had several things on her schedule today—including her weekly meeting with Director Delu—and as much as she liked Jeremy and appreciated that he responded well to her, she didn’t really want to spend all her time babysitting him.

“Uh, Dr. Ward?” Jenny asked nervously, sticking her head out the door of the exam room. Rachel ducked in to see Jeremy crouched on the table, back straight, eyes wide and alert in an exaggerated way as he turned his head back and forth. “He’s been turning into different animals and I have to guess,” she explained quickly, with a remarkable lack of discomfort. “I can’t figure this one out, though, and he keeps nipping at me when I try to take some blood.”

“He’s an owl,” Rachel deduced, and Jeremy relaxed on the table again. “You better not be playing, buster,” she warned him severely. “You are in _serious_ trouble for breaking out of your room, and you aren’t going to like what happens if you keep disrupting the place.”

“I can’t help it,” Jeremy protested. “Jenny put me under a magic spell—“ He froze mid-sentence, then began waving his arms very slowly, as though he were underwater.

“I did not,” Jenny insisted, as though there were a chance Rachel would believe him.

“Starfish,” Rachel guessed, and he relaxed.

“You’re so good at this, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy complimented her, amazed. “You’ll have the spell broken in no time.”

“How long’s it gonna last?” Rachel questioned flatly.

“Only eighty-seven more guesses to go,” Jeremy told her. Then he scrunched up in a ball and nearly rolled off the table.

“Gerbil,” said Rachel, after she and Jenny had caught him. “Next thing he turns into, don’t guess anything, just take the blood sample,” she advised Jenny. “I have to review my notes before Karl comes in.”

“Can I stay in your office?” Jeremy asked, right before he rolled over onto his stomach and started flipping his feet back and forth in synch.

“Yes,” Rachel told him, not sure if it got through. She was thinking he was a seal but didn’t want to say anything since it was a good position for Jenny to take blood from. “Call me if you have problems.”

**

Rachel pasted a bandage over a gash in Karl’s side, then moved on to another one, deftly ripping the old bandage off to assess the healing. Karl did not show impatience. Karl would not show impatience. But Rachel thought she detected a whiff of it coming off him anyway.

“And what did we learn from all this, Karl?” she asked sternly.

“Ponies are mean,” he grunted.

Rachel supposed that was one interpretation. “So maybe you should listen to the trainer next time, and not just rely on half-watching _The Horse Whisperer_.”

Karl did not dignify this with a response. “Jeremy broke out of his room this morning,” he said instead, which surprised Rachel. He didn’t usually take much interest in what the other agents did.

“Yes, he did,” she agreed, affixing a new bandage over a wound. “I suppose you were around for all the chaos.”

“Yes.”

“Not within your parameters to intervene and stop him, right?” Rachel checked. She wasn’t sure if she would want him to or not.

“No.”

“Well, he’s just sick,” she assured him. “He’s seeing things that aren’t there.”

“You said that yesterday,” Karl pointed out.

“I just get the feeling you don’t believe me,” Rachel admitted. Karl did not do anything to reassure her about this point.

“Dr. Ward!” Jeremy suddenly called frantically from her office, and Rachel tried not to roll her eyes. He’d really been doing pretty well for the last hour or so.

“I’m in here, Jeremy,” she reminded him. “Just ignore it, it’s not real.” Whatever it was.

“I’m stuck, Dr. Ward!” he continued, distressed.

She had her hands full of tape and gauze at the moment. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No,” he decided.

“Can you wait a few minutes?”

“No!” he insisted.

“Once in training he ate some mouse poison pellets thinking they were candy,” Karl shared.

Rachel took his comment as encouragement to go check on Jeremy. “Okay, wait here,” she told Karl, pulling off her gloves. She walked into her office to find Jeremy lying on top of the bookshelves. “I thought you were stuck,” she prompted.

“I am!” Jeremy claimed. “I can’t move! There must be some kind of adhesive on this wall—“

“The only adhesive is in your mind,” Rachel told him patiently. “Can you try to move, and jump down?”

From her perspective, he didn’t really try. “I can’t! I’m stuck.”

“Well, Karl’s in the other room, maybe he can help,” Rachel suggested innocently.

Jeremy’s eyes narrowed at her and he squirmed around with determination. But the power of his misfiring neurons was too great and he lapsed into defeated stillness.

“Do you just want to stay up there?” Rachel offered. She wasn’t even going to ask how he’d _gotten_ up there.

“No. But I can figure it out,” he insisted.

Rachel did not think this likely. “Karl, could you come in here, please?” she summoned. The large blond man entered promptly and his eyes went straight to Jeremy. The non-expression on his face was very telling. “Karl, would you be able to get Jeremy down, please? If you wouldn’t be injured doing so.”

“I don’t think he should even try,” Jeremy hedged. “Because this adhesive is very strong, and he might damage the wall.”

Karl did not pay attention to Jeremy’s reasoning, however, and merely reached up to grab a handful of his shirt. “Gently, Karl,” Rachel warned as he easily pulled the other man off the top of the bookshelves. He tried to set Jeremy on his feet but he folded limply, winding up on the floor.

“I can’t feel my legs!” Jeremy claimed. “They’re gone!”

“No, they aren’t,” Karl countered flatly, perhaps silently adding ‘moron.’ He released Jeremy and let him thump the last few inches to the floor.

“Are you okay, Jeremy?” Rachel checked, not putting too much concern in her voice. The matter-of-fact approach seemed to work best, and she was having trouble mustering much more anyway.

“I’m just going to lie here for a while,” he replied, gripping the carpet with both hands.

“Okay. I’ll be in the other room.” Rachel went back into the exam room and Karl followed a moment later, after staring down at Jeremy for several long seconds like he was something mildly interesting from the bottom of Karl’s shoe. “Thanks for your help,” Rachel told him as he sat back on the table.

“How much longer will he be like that?” Karl wanted to know.

“About four more days.” It seemed an eternity to Rachel at the moment. Karl’s grunt seemed to agree.

**

Dr. Kedar walked into the outer office, glancing significantly at the exam room door. “Hey, Jenny,” he greeted. “Is she in there?”

“No, she’s in her weekly meeting with Director Delu,” the nurse corrected, nibbling some grapes at her desk.

“Oh, that’s right,” he remembered. “Do you happen to know if she’s free for lunch today? Does she like Uzbek food?”

There was a deep growl from behind him and Dr. Kedar turned slowly, seeing Jeremy slink from behind the couch on all fours. He had a feral glint in his eye and somehow moved the way no human should in that position, with grace and power. He snarled again, a low, wet sound in the back of his throat, and bared his teeth menacingly. Dr. Kedar glanced nervously at Jenny, who didn’t seem overly concerned.

“Jeremy’s been having these hallucinations,” she informed the doctor. “From this antivenom medication? Dr. Ward was going to put out a memo warning everyone.”

“Uh, yeah, I heard about that,” Dr. Kedar agreed. Anyone who’d missed Jeremy’s naked stroll into the cafeteria last night couldn’t ignore the lockdown he’d set off earlier that morning. Now he stalked uncomfortably close to the doctor, sniffing him in a judgmental way as if testing his suitability as a meal.

“Jeremy, come here,” Jenny summoned. She broke off part of the sandwich sitting on her desk and waved it at him. “Here’s some tuna fish. Yummy tuna fish!” With a final growl at Dr. Kedar Jeremy padded over to her. He put his hands on her knees to raise his head but she held the sandwich back. “No, paws down,” she ordered sternly and he dropped back to the floor. “Good boy,” she praised, poking the sandwich into his open mouth. He snapped his jaws shut, barely missing her fingers, but she patted his head anyway. “Tigers _love_ tuna fish!”

“This probably isn’t in your job description,” Dr. Kedar noted dryly.

“Nor can I put it on my résumé,” she added in kind. “But he’s been pretty well-behaved. I don’t think Dr. Ward will be able to go out for lunch today,” she added. “She might be free for lunch here, though, if you don’t mind Jeremy hanging around acting like a lemur or a fruit bat or something.”

Suddenly Jeremy leveraged himself over the edge of her desk, taking a messy bite of the remaining sandwich and spilling tuna salad everywhere. “Jeremy!” Jenny protested. “ _I’m_ going out for lunch as soon as she gets back,” she added darkly, “since he’s eaten all of mine.” Jeremy seemed utterly unrepentant, lying at her feet devouring the food.

“Maybe another day would be better,” Dr. Kedar decided prudently.

**

Rachel glanced up from her paperwork to see that Jeremy was still sitting quietly on the couch, poking at his laptop and apparently not being deluded about anything important. Of course, for all she knew, he was clicking on every banner ad and spam link, thinking they really would result in millions of dollars or a lower hairline, but she figured that was for the IT guys to deal with.

As far as she could discover, no agent had been given this particular antivenom medicine before, but they’d been given other, similar ones, and such vivid hallucinations had _not_ been a side effect. Although according to the records, one had put an agent into a coma for the duration of its use, and another had resulted in uncontrollable sneezing. So clearly there was some unexpected interaction going on there. Rachel decided hallucinations were better than a coma, when you didn’t know the coma was going to end and everything would be fine. Jeremy might not agree with her, though.

“You okay over there?” she checked, glancing at the clock.

“Yes,” he judged. “I feel fine.”

Jeremy was imaginative for an agent, which made him so good at the deep cover missions; maybe that had something to do with him getting hallucinations instead of something else. Though what personality traits would translate as a coma or sneezing, she wasn’t sure.

“Well, good. It’s time to take the next dose of the medicine.” Rachel retrieved it from the exam room, along with a glass of water. “Here you go.”

Jeremy’s lips tightened and he stared at the pill for a long moment before gazing back up at her. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “Four more days, buddy, that’s it,” she reminded him.

“I don’t like how it makes me feel.”

“I know,” Rachel agreed sympathetically. “But you need to take all five doses.” She didn’t bother offering him any hopeful ideas about how it might be better now that his body was used to the drug, because she had no idea if that was true. Anyway, that shouldn’t be enticement to do something that was necessary for his own health. Her look turned slightly stern as she waited and finally he took the pill and the water. “Open your mouth,” she ordered once he’d allegedly swallowed. She didn’t see the pill anywhere. “We’ll be taking another blood sample from you tomorrow,” she warned. “The trace levels of venom should be lower than today.”

“Snakes are very remarkable,” Jeremy decided philosophically. He tucked the laptop safely away in a drawer and perched on the edge of the couch, hands and knees clasped together as though bracing himself.

“Can you control the hallucinations at all?” Rachel asked curiously. “Direct them, I mean. You said before it was kind of like having a dream.”

“Maybe,” Jeremy replied hesitantly. “When I was in the gym earlier and I thought I was on the pirate ship, I knew I shouldn’t walk the plank. That would have taken me outside, and I knew I shouldn’t go outside.”

“That’s right,” Rachel encouraged. She could only imagine what would happen if Jeremy escaped the interior of the Center—if he could break out of his room he could easily break perimeter and get into the city, and _that_ would turn this minor concern into a huge problem. “So, Jeremy,” she added reluctantly after a minute, “tomorrow is Saturday.” Pause. “I don’t usually work on the weekends.”

This information did not take him by surprise. “I was thinking of staying in secure containment over the weekend,” he admitted. “It would just be easier.”

“I don’t think you would like it there,” she pointed out.

“I’ve been there before,” he shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant.

“When?” Rachel asked with a frown.

“After I fought the Nazis on the moon.”

She nodded. “That medicine kicks in pretty quick, huh?” In response Jeremy tipped his head to the side at an unnatural angle and slowly reached a hand out to paw at something invisible. Rachel made up her mind. “The Director _did_ order me to look after you,” she noted, more to herself for as much as Jeremy appeared to be listening. “So I’m sure he wouldn’t mind authorizing some overtime for me this weekend.” His stare was starting to make her a little uncomfortable. “Hey, Jeremy, why don’t you sing something again?”

This got his attention. “You want me to sing something?” The idea seemed to please him.

“Yeah, you’re a great singer, sing something,” Rachel encouraged. “Something long.” The more it kept him occupied, the better.

He thought a moment, then launched into “American Pie.” The saddest version of “American Pie” Rachel had ever heard, and it wasn’t exactly an upbeat song to begin with. It sounded like something someone would sing as they walked to their execution.

“That’s a long song,” Jeremy judged when he was done.

“You have no idea,” Rachel sighed. She popped up. “Come on, let’s go down to the cafeteria and have a snack. Maybe a Prozac.” Jeremy followed her readily, holding her hand. The physical contact seemed to comfort him and—more professionally—to ground him, since he was so focused on not hurting Rachel with sudden movements. He did insist, gently, on hanging on to the ceiling bars in the elevator on the way down, though he took it well when Rachel declined to join him.

“Okay, what do you want?” she asked as they entered the line. “Maybe some fruit? Have you had your orange today?”

“I would like a turkey,” Jeremy decided.

“A turkey sandwich?” Rachel clarified, looking for one on the counter.

“No, a live turkey,” Jeremy corrected. “I would like to tear it into pieces and see how long it takes it to die.”

Several people turned to stare at them. “How about an orange?” Rachel offered instead.

“Well, okay.”

“I’m going to have a brownie,” she decided. “I’m going to have a brownie every time you describe killing or maiming something.” That seemed fair.

They moved down the line. “Can I climb up on the counter?” he asked, tugging on her hand.

“No.”

“Please? I really need to!”

“No, Jeremy,” Rachel told him firmly. “It’s just your imagination. If you knock my brownie on the floor I will hurt you, and that is _not_ your imagination,” she threatened when he jostled her arm. This quieted him long enough to get to a table.

He placed the orange carefully on the table and stared at it quietly for a while, then took off his jacket and wrapped it gently around the fruit. “Whatcha doin’?” Rachel asked conversationally.

“I need to keep it warm until it hatches,” Jeremy asserted.

“What’s it going to hatch into?”

“A dog.” Rachel nodded. “I’m going to name it Jeremy.”

Rachel blinked at him. “That’s _your_ name.” She didn’t know why she expected any of this to make sense.

“It’s a good name,” he agreed. “Jeremy was a nice dog.”

“You mean, he _will be_?” Rachel corrected, slightly suspicious. She reached up to feel his forehead, but it was fine.

Jeremy looked up at her suddenly, his gaze clearer. “Sorry, Dr. Ward. Did you say something?” He unwrapped the jacket and began to peel the orange without hesitation.

Rachel shook her head. “No, never mind.”

A shadow fell over their table and Rachel looked up to see Susan Bates standing there with a bowl of pretzels. “Hi, Susan,” Rachel greeted. The two agents inclined their heads at each other marginally.

“Can I sit next to Jeremy?” Susan asked solemnly.

“Sure,” Rachel allowed, so she sat down on Jeremy’s other side. “He’s sick, though—“

“I know. Karl told me.”

“I suppose everybody knows by now,” Rachel speculated. Probably that was better, so they wouldn’t think he’d just gone crazy.

“No, Jeremy,” Susan said earnestly, pulling a piece of orange peel from his mouth. “You don’t eat this part.”

Jeremy growled slightly in response, and Susan growled back, but they were more like conversational growls and neither of them tensed up. She put a wedge of orange in his hand instead and he popped it into his mouth. Rachel smiled a little and went back to her brownie.

“Who’s going to look after Jeremy this weekend, Dr. Ward?” Susan wanted to know.

“I’ll be coming in during the day,” Rachel told her. “It would really help if you could keep an eye on him at night, when you aren’t busy,” she added, wondering if it was really wise to enlist other agents in this. Their grasp of reality wasn’t always the best, even on a good day. “Don’t let him hurt anyone, or go outside.”

Susan nodded seriously. “I won’t.”

“Can I get under the table?” Jeremy asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” Rachel allowed with a shrug. “You’re not seeing dinosaurs around, are you?”

He gave her a look that suggested this was a very odd thing to say indeed. “No. Are you?”

“Can I get under the table, too?” Susan asked him.

“Okay.”

Rachel tried not to imagine what they were doing under there and focused on the fact that another agent cared about Jeremy enough to want to help him, whatever her methods. Agents weren’t really supposed to take much notice of each other, or only in a professional way. Rachel had found that in practice this wasn’t really true, however—they had all been through similar extreme experiences and were the only ones who really understood what their lives were like, so of course friendships were going to form.

“Hey, stay over here where I can feel you,” Rachel advised Jeremy. She would not put it past him to sneak out and be halfway across the room chasing a Yeti before she noticed.

Susan crawled back out and into a chair, the novelty of following Jeremy’s delusions having worn off quickly. “Can I take Jeremy to the gym to work out?” she asked Rachel.

“Well, he got away to the gym earlier today and almost went outside,” Rachel hedged, “so maybe it would be better not to.”

“There’s a gym in the basement,” Susan countered. “With no outside doors. It’s the old gym.”

“Oh, well, that sounds fine,” Rachel reversed. “I’ve never heard of it before.”

“It’s old.”

Okay. “But Susan,” Rachel went on more seriously, “maybe you shouldn’t be in an isolated place with Jeremy right now. You know, what are you going to do if he suddenly freaks out and thinks you’re an evil aardvark who must be stopped?” Since the agents were supposed to remain calm at the Center and not use their considerable physical abilities against anyone, even in self-defense.

“What would _you_ do?” Susan countered, her tone implying that Rachel was even less suited to such a situation.

It wasn’t like Rachel hadn’t considered this, several times. “Well, if he becomes, you know, the H-word”—she didn’t want to set off a hostility trigger when Jeremy was already probably being watched—“call for help and run like h—l,” Rachel advised. That was her ultimate plan.

Susan nodded. “Better not run, though,” she corrected sagely. “When he could see you. Because then he would want to chase you.” Rachel conceded the point.

“I like aardvarks,” Jeremy said from under the table. “They tell funny jokes.” He started to move away from where Rachel could feel him and Susan deftly reached under the table and pushed him back.

Karl appeared beside the table, carrying a large bowl of pudding with whipped cream. He didn’t so much ask if he could join them, as give Rachel and Susan a chance to object before he sat down.

“Careful, Jeremy’s under the table,” Rachel warned him.

“I know,” Karl replied without concern.

“Ow!” called Jeremy. “You stepped on me!”

To Karl the solution seemed obvious. “Get off the floor.”

Amazingly Jeremy did so, squirming up into the chair next to Karl with the remains of his orange—all peel, fortunately. “Jeremy and I were going to go to the old gym,” Susan informed Karl, “where he can’t get outside.” Karl snorted in a way that seemed to convey approval of this plan.

Jeremy started to stand, wide-eyed, and Karl grabbed his shoulder with one large hand. The sheer weight of it was enough to press Jeremy back into the chair. “But there’s a—“ he started to object, pointing.

“No, there isn’t,” Karl interrupted gruffly. It was hard to argue with such a definitive tone, so Jeremy stayed in his seat.

Maybe this weekend wouldn’t be so bad after all, Rachel decided. “Jeremy, would you like to go work out in the old gym in the basement for a while?” she checked. Exercise gave him something useful to do that was also calming.

“Okay.”

She glanced at Susan. “You’re going to take him?”

The other woman nodded. “Karl can come, too,” she offered generously.

“Well it seems like you’ll be in good hands,” Rachel noted. Maybe this was a horrible idea, letting other agents supervise Jeremy; but if it _wasn’t_ , it could be very useful, and meant that Jeremy didn’t have to be stuck wherever Rachel needed to be. “I’m going back to my office,” she announced, standing and glancing around the table to see if there were any objections. There weren’t. “Jeremy, come and see me again before I go home, okay?” she added and he nodded, keenly aware of what time that occurred. “Let me know if there are any problems, guys.” And then she left, before she could sound any more like a mother hen.

Of course she called the security monitors as soon as she got back to her office. “Hey, would it be possible for me to tap into a camera feed and see what’s happening in the old gym?” she asked. “Jeremy went down there with a couple of other agents and I want to keep an eye on them.”

“ _Sure, Dr. Ward_ ,” the monitor answered. “ _Which room was it?_ ”

“I guess there’s an old gym in the basement?” Rachel repeated, suddenly feeling lame for not being able to provide a room number or something more precise. The basements here were huge.

“ _There’s a storage area that used to be a gym_ ,” the monitor conveyed, her tone helpful as she perused old blueprints of the building, or so Rachel imagined. “ _It stores… gym equipment_.”

“Well, that could be it,” Rachel hesitated. “Hey, could you just follow Jeremy? That might be easier. He’s supposed to be with Susan and Karl.” And now she wondered why she hadn’t made _sure_ they were all going to stay together, or walked down to this phantom gym with them. It had just seemed so nice that the others wanted to help Jeremy, she’d kind of skipped over the part where they were _capable_ of it. Or maybe she was giving all of them too little credit.

“ _Sure, we can do that_ ,” the monitor assured her. A video window popped up on Rachel’s computer, showing the three agents walking down a dim and narrow hall. It was a little spooky how closely the agents were watched, everywhere they went in the Center. Rachel deliberately did not look at any of the cameras she knew were positioned around her own office.

“Where are they?” she asked instead, as the agents moved to single-file to get around some boxes. Jeremy tried to leap on top of them but Karl grabbed him at the last moment and pushed him along.

“ _They’re in a storage area of the basement_ ,” the monitor confirmed. “ _I think they’re heading in the right direction._ ”

“Good, I was starting to worry they were taking him off to kill him,” Rachel joked, and the monitor didn’t respond. “Er, well, thanks,” she added awkwardly. “Can I track him to the gym?”

“ _Sure, I’ll set that up_ ,” the monitor promised, then discreetly hung up. Jokes about the agents killing each other were probably not appreciated around here, Rachel decided.

After another minute or so the agents indeed reached a more open space where gym equipment had been set up haphazardly. Rachel imagined an especially antisocial agent working out down there all alone, like the people who built societies underground in the sewers. If it had _just_ been Karl she still would’ve been a little worried; but since Susan was also there, Rachel relaxed and went back to work, occasionally glancing up to see if the scenery had changed. She unmated her computer at one point when they seemed to be having a relatively lengthy conversation, just in case something was wrong, but otherwise let them have that modicum of privacy. Jeremy was reluctant, she surmised, to do anything like use a punching bag—he was trying to be careful, and good for him, because Rachel shuddered to think what would happen if he mistook someone standing in front of him for that bag. So he did nice, safe things like sit-ups and jumping rope while the others used the more advanced equipment.

She had to admit she was impressed with Karl and Susan—they kept a close eye on Jeremy and didn’t let him wander off, and if he started to act weird they stopped him from doing anything dangerous. It was a curiously passive form of guidance, maneuvering him more by blocking his path than by grabbing him, and without much dialogue. Rachel got the feeling they were really pushing the limits of how they were supposed to behave at the Center, and she appreciated them all the more for it.

As the clock moved closer to the hour she generally left Rachel grew restless. She was coming in again the next day, on Saturday, of course; so this evening would have to suffice for relaxation, and she wanted to get it started as soon as possible. She shut down her computer and gathered up her things, then headed downward—there was no need for Jeremy to come _up_ to meet her, then accompany her back _down_ to his room so she could once again lock him in (for all the good that had done last night).

As she hit one of the basement levels Rachel belatedly realized she wasn’t exactly sure where she was going or how to get there. Which was okay; she kind of liked looking around strange, lonely places, when she felt reasonably secure overall. All she had to do if she got really turned around, or nervous, was pull out her cell phone or wave to a camera.

Though she couldn’t immediately identify the cameras down here.

And her cell phone didn’t seem to get very good reception.

And occasionally she heard an odd little noise nearby, or had the distinct feeling she was being watched.

Rachel headed for a red glow that she thought was an exit sign, but it turned out to merely be some kind of thermostat, which she was contemplating disabling just to get some attention. Then she looked up and saw Karl standing there, and nearly jumped out of her skin. Though once she calmed down she was glad to see him.

“Thank goodness, I am totally lost,” Rachel confessed to him.

“I know,” he replied, unsurprised.

“Well… where’s Jeremy and Susan?” she asked, wondering if she should be nervous again. “I was going to put Jeremy in his room for the night.”

“They’re behind those boxes,” Karl informed her. His revelation did not induce them to break cover, but she thought she heard some noise from that direction. “They’ve been practicing their stalking skills.”

“On me? Nice,” Rachel commented sarcastically.

“I told them it was stupid,” Karl said flatly.

“Well, thanks—“

“You aren’t much of a challenge.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Jeremy! Come on, time to go,” she summoned.

With a light rustle Jeremy sprang from behind a crate to crouch lightly on top of it, looking at her with a distant curiosity that was slightly disconcerting. “Does he think he’s some kind of animal?” she asked Karl, who shrugged unhelpfully.

“We followed you all the way from the west stairwell,” Susan reported, with mild excitement, as she appeared around the other side of the boxes.

“Impressive,” Rachel allowed, “but maybe next time you could help me out a little sooner when you realize I’m lost.”

“Predators don’t help prey,” Jeremy told her. His voice was low and serious and had a slight growl at the back that sent shivers up Rachel’s spine.

“You auditioning for Batman or something?” she accused, trying to defuse her nerves. If any of them got the joke they didn’t show it. “Well, thanks for helping out with Jeremy this afternoon,” she went on, addressing Susan and Karl. “I kept an eye on you guys and you were really—“

Jeremy climbed off the crate and walked right up to her, close enough that Rachel leaned away. “I told you she was watching us,” he reminded the others, in a vaguely menacing tone, then he ducked in and sniffed at her. She thought she’d gotten used to him doing that, but this time there was a whole different attitude behind it that she wasn’t comfortable with.

“Penguin, right?” she said randomly, stepping back deliberately. He tilted his head a little to the side, assessingly, but didn’t pursue her. “So… where’s the resident zone?” She directed this question at Karl and Susan.

“It’s right around the corner,” Karl said. “If you’d kept going you would’ve found the guard station.”

“Oh.”

He gestured for her to go first, around him, and Jeremy growled suddenly—not a mere non-verbal communication but an actual threat, and Rachel froze in alarm.

Karl seemed merely annoyed, though, if that. “Fine, _you_ go first,” he shrugged, as though it was no big deal, and Jeremy pushed past him. At the last moment he took Rachel’s arm and steered her alongside.

She twisted her arm free, firmly but slowly, trying not to trigger him. “No. You’re not gonna grab me. And don’t growl at me, either,” she snapped when he did so. This particular delusion, whatever it was, could end any time, as far as she was concerned.

They turned the corner and she saw the light of the _real_ exit sign up ahead. The hallway cleared of stored items and the usual security signs and obvious cameras began popping back up, making her feel much better.

“Okay, so, I’ll be locking you in your room tonight,” Rachel warned him. “You have food in there, right? For dinner?” Jeremy gave her an unnerving glance that suggested _she_ might be the main course. Rachel cleared her throat. “Uh, please try to _stay_ in your room this time, I know you can’t completely help it, but maybe write yourself a note, or think about it hard—“

Jeremy turned suddenly, backing her against the wall with a hand on either side. He was not actually touching her but she knew she was trapped just the same. “I don’t want to be locked in,” he purred suggestively. “Alone.”

Rachel’s eyes widened and her hearted started to pound as she pressed back against the wall. Agents weren’t really supposed to think about _sex_ , especially not at the Center—their training suppressed that drive, along with other messy emotions and urges that might make them volatile or unfocused. But the look in Jeremy’s eyes, so intensely blue-green, said he’d managed to overcome that restriction. Rachel felt the heat rise to her face and she suddenly realized it wasn’t really _Jeremy’s_ lack of restraint she was worried about.

Her eyes darted sideways, to the other agents. Susan at least was frowning a little, but Karl looked incredibly bored; so Rachel wasn’t sure what _that_ averaged to. Jeremy started to lean in and she immediately brought her hands up to his chest to stop him. “Whoa there, um, buddy,” she insisted, using the least sexy nickname she could think of on short notice. “Let’s just, um… continue with the plan.” There was apparently no non-innuendo-laced way to mention his bedroom. This made her think of something dissuasive, though, and she blurted, “Hey, maybe you could have that appointment with Dr. Zhu tomorrow!”

Mentioning the loathed psychiatrist had the desired effect and Jeremy drew back like she’d doused him with cold water. His expression said her dirty tricks disappointed him, but Rachel was too relieved to care.

“Can we get going, please?” she prompted, channeling her discomfort into peevishness. She considered throwing in the lie that she had a date waiting but thought that might be too provocative. She _did_ feel bad about locking Jeremy up, after all, even if it was for his own good.

They passed through the guard station without incident, though they surely made a curious group, and she was grateful that Karl and Susan trailed her to Jeremy’s quarters. Dealing with him on her own under whatever delusion this was did not seem like a good idea.

“Okay, so, I’ll be back in the morning,” Rachel reminded him, opening the door when he didn’t. “Goodnight, Jeremy.”

He let out a sharp breath and for an instant his expression was one of pain and frustration, like he thought he’d become resigned to every stab this life dealt out, but suddenly he’d caught one between the ribs that really _hurt_. Rachel saw it and caved—she didn’t know what she was going to do, but she knew she couldn’t leave him there by himself.

Then Karl gave him a minor shove across the threshold and shut the door. “Lock it,” he told Rachel, who did so hurriedly before she could change her mind yet again. “He’s just in a mood,” Karl added dismissively. Moods were for losers, his tone said.

“I think he’ll feel better soon, Dr. Ward,” Susan told her, in what was meant to be a comforting manner. “He’ll probably forget this ever happened, and go back to being an egg. He seemed very comfortable as an egg.”

If Karl made puns, he would make a contemptuous one about being cracked or scrambled right now, and it wouldn’t only apply to Jeremy. “You should set it so she can’t let him out,” he reminded Rachel, indicating Susan.

“I wouldn’t let him out,” Susan insisted as Rachel did so. “He’s _sick_.”

“I’m just going to put a flag on him,” Rachel told them, accessing the commands from the door panel. “He shouldn’t get out. But if he _does_ get out, he won’t have to barrel through checkpoints and trigger a lockdown. He’ll just be followed everywhere by guards.” This reminded her of something. “You know, it was weird, my office didn’t lock down this morning,” she added idly as she walked back towards the guard station.

“Why would it,” Karl rumbled. “He wanted to go there.”

“I helped hack the system,” Susan revealed, with some pride. “Lockdowns are hard to circumvent.”

Karl’s expression said it was apparently his lot in life to be stuck with only moody miscreants for companions. “Can you find your way back?” he asked Rachel—not sarcastically, merely with healthy doubt in her navigational abilities.

“Yes,” she assured him. “Thanks again for helping with Jeremy,” she added, since the last such comment had been interrupted. “See you tomorrow.” She left both agents on the other side of the guard station and was not surprised when they didn’t say goodbye.


	3. Day Three

_Day Three—Saturday_

The next morning Rachel arrived at work at her usual time, opting for jeans instead of more formal attire as a way to make up for missing her weekend. The agents were, of course, living beings who didn’t stop needing medical attention just because it was Saturday or Sunday, and Rachel had certainly come in on the weekends before, often on short notice to face some kind of crisis, so really this was better.

After opening up her office and making sure there were no urgent emails from overnight, Rachel went down to the cafeteria and picked up breakfast for Jeremy—some dry cereal, a little carton of milk, and an orange—as well as a coffee for herself. It would not make a complete meal for him but it was easy to carry and hopefully it would make an adequate peace offering—she’d spent a good chunk of the last few hours second-guessing her reaction to him the evening before and consequently feeling guilty. In a sense this was foolish, because it couldn’t have ended any other way than with Jeremy locked in his room, alone—she couldn’t have stayed the night with him (on the couch!) or anything like that. But maybe she could have—said something, to reassure him somehow, to remind him that she cared about him and saw him as a real person with real pain. But then again his mood hadn’t seemed particularly receptive to that kind of sentiment. And frankly it was difficult for her to act as the sympathetic caregiver when he was crossing that line between them and looking at her like—

Well. Best not to go there, even in her own mind. She didn’t know what she was going to find on the other side of that door this morning and she had to stay focused.

The resident zone was eerily quiet to Rachel, though she couldn’t of course tell if the agents were generally in their rooms or elsewhere in the Center. Below ground there were no windows in the hallway, not even the artificial ones, so she had no sense of time either.

You could be the last person on Earth following a zombie apocalypse down here and you’d never know it.

Except for the guard at the entrance and all the other people she’d met in the building that morning, Rachel chided herself. There was a time and a place for being imaginative, and this was not either.

Rachel checked to make sure that Jeremy’s door was still locked and that it had stayed locked all night. Then she unlocked it, waited a few seconds, and sounded the chime. She tried not to be impatient as she waited for a response. She rang the chime again. Then she decided to open the door herself, but stood off to the side as she did so, just in case he was planning to dash out. He didn’t.

Rachel stuck her head cautiously around the corner. “Jeremy?” Nothing. She entered and turned to face the bed, shaking her head as she saw the lump under the covers. “Come on, Jeremy, time to get up.” The lump moved slightly, pulling the blankets more tightly around itself like a shield.

Rachel set the food and her coffee down on the table and walked all around the bed, assessing the situation. She had so loathed it when one of her parents came to wake her in the morning for school. But obviously they _had_ to, and she couldn’t let Jeremy stay in bed all day, either. At the very least, he would have to sleep on the couch in her office, so she could get some work done.

“Jeremy. Come on, tiger. I brought you some breakfast,” Rachel tempted. The lump seemed to roll away from her defiantly. “I’m not gonna let you stay in bed,” Rachel warned. “It’s not good for you. Now get up.”

Nothing. Her threat was clearly not even worthy of a response. “Okay,” Rachel sighed, climbing on the bed. She tried to find an edge or gap in the blankets but Jeremy had fortified himself well, so she risked just grabbing a handful of fabric and pulling. A whine of protest met her, but she decided this meant she was getting close and kept yanking.

Finally a tousled head emerged, bleary-eyed and glaring. “I don’t feel good,” Jeremy croaked, trying to pull the blankets back up.

“Luckily, I’m a doctor,” Rachel pointed out, blocking him. “How don’t you feel good?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t,” Jeremy complained peevishly, rolling over away from her.

“Do you feel nauseous?” Rachel probed. “Dizzy? Headache?” She reached over and felt his cheek and forehead. He was warmer, but no warmer than someone who’d been buried under the blankets, she decided. “Did you pull a muscle exercising yesterday? Come on, Jeremy, what’s wrong?”

“I lack any motivation to leave my bed,” he finally replied, distinctly.

Well, points for honesty, at least. “How about breakfast?” she tried again. “I brought you an orange.” This was not sufficient and he tried to tug the covers back over his head again. Rachel knelt on them to prevent this. “Okay, buddy, what can we do to motivate you here? You want to come up to my office and watch a movie?” No. “Maybe Susan and Karl could go with you to the old gym again.” No. “We could go to the cafeteria and have a waffle for breakfast, with strawberries and whipped cream.” No.

Tough crowd.

Rachel changed her tone. “Look, this does not end with me going away and you going back to sleep,” she stated. “You are leaving this bed, and in what manner and how many people it involves, are up to you.”

“Why,” Jeremy said flatly. He finally turned back to look at her. “It’s better if I stay here all day. In bed. Locked in. At least until I think—something stupid is happening, that really isn’t,” he added, his tone unusually bitter. “Then it’s better if I’m locked in here anyway.”

“It’s _not_ better,” Rachel asserted, running her hand through his hair to smooth it. “You need to get up and do things, or you’ll get depressed.”

“Too late.”

Rachel sympathized. Being sick was disheartening. Having hallucinations was scary, especially for someone so used to relying on his sense for split-second decisions. But the answer was _not_ being locked in his room all day moping, or in secure confinement, unless it was absolutely necessary. And that point had not been reached.

“Okay, first thing, you’re going to get up and take a shower,” Rachel decided. “Because you really need one. Come on, let’s go.” She climbed over him, off the bed, and began applying all her force to pulling him up.

“Are you gonna take a shower with me?” he asked sleepily.

“Do not start _that_ again,” Rachel warned him. “Dr. Zhu will have both of us staring at inkblots for an hour.” She got him sitting up at least, then he flopped over bonelessly as soon as she let go. “Take your shirt off. G-d, Jeremy, don’t be such a _child_.” This comment was made to assure anyone watching that there was nothing inappropriate about her peeling his t-shirt off as he passive-aggressively laid there like a very heavy rag doll. “I’m gonna start the shower,” she warned. “Get up.”

Naturally, he didn’t. Rachel was not frustrated, though. She felt progress was being made, because at least he hadn’t moved from where she’d left him. If he’d gotten back under the blankets again she might have screamed.

“You know, there were some times when I was responsible for getting my little brother out of bed,” she told Jeremy menacingly. “I have a number of weapons in my arsenal.” Usually going for her brother’s pants had jolted him into action—in retrospect that seemed perhaps a little wrong—but anyway she didn’t think that was a good tactic with Jeremy. He was clearly not intimidated by her threats and merely watched her curiously, almost daringly, from under one arm. “Okay,” she shrugged, as though he’d left her no choice. First, she made sure some of the blankets were on the floor in front of the bed. Then she walked around to the other side and climbed up on the mattress, behind Jeremy, and with a sudden movement, leveraged him expertly onto the floor.

“Ow,” he protested, slight astonishment in his tone. Well, her baby brother had been bigger than her, too, and thought that would save him. It didn’t.

“It’s your own fault if you got hurt,” Rachel assured him blithely, walking back around to find Jeremy sprawled on the floor. “You could’ve just _walked_ to the bathroom.” Now that he was down, however, he had no intention of getting back _up_ ; especially when there were some cozy blankets he could curl up in again. But that was all part of Rachel’s cunning trap.

She waited until Jeremy rearranged himself comfortably, then gathered up the extra flaps of the blankets and started dragging them towards the bathroom, with Jeremy bundled along for the ride. And conveniently, trapped in the cocoon of his own making. At this point with her brother Rachel had usually cackled with glee, but she tried to remember that Jeremy was sick and she shouldn’t torment him _too_ much. Plus, he was harder to drag, or maybe the carpet was just putting up more resistance; her parents’ house at the time had had hardwood floors.

Rachel pulled him into the small bathroom, practically climbing into the shower just to maneuver him as close to the tub as possible. Then she finally dropped the blankets and waited for him to worm his way out.

He didn’t.

Stifling a sigh, Rachel dug through the blankets herself until Jeremy emerged, looking slightly indolent, as though he’d _enjoyed_ being dragged around. “So,” she said anyway, trying to project confidence, “get in the shower.” Instead Jeremy stretched out on the floor as best he could, wedged between the tub and the toilet, and clasped his hands over his chest. Waiting for Rachel’s next move.

She had one in mind. It wasn’t pretty, and she had to think it through first to make sure she could do it fast enough. There was also the possibility it would not have the desired effect. But she thought she could work around that.

In one swift motion Rachel stepped back, quickly turning the temperature knob on the shower to cold and redirecting the showerhead so that it sprayed _beyond_ the tub, right onto Jeremy.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if the cold water hadn’t fazed him. She was almost _more_ surprised by his sudden yowl, like an angry cat, and the vault he made over the toilet to the other corner of the bathroom. “Oh, you seem to be moving _now_ ,” she noted innocently.

He glanced at the open bathroom door across from him and Rachel jumped over to slam it shut. “No way, buddy,” she told him firmly. “You’re not leaving this room until you’re clean.” This battle of wills could have only one victor, and it was not going to be Jeremy.

But then he went in a direction she didn’t expect—he drew his knees up in the corner and buried his face in his arms, rocking slightly.

“Jeremy?” Rachel probed. It occurred to her he might be counterfeiting, to throw her off guard. But she couldn’t _not_ check. She ventured closer. “Jeremy? Hey, are you hurt?” Rachel knelt down on the floor in front of him and squeezed his arm. He looked up at her, face streaked with tears, and her irritation with him melted away. “Hey, it’s okay,” she soothed, running her hand through his unruly, damp hair. “You’re gonna be okay.” He opened slightly and pulled her into his arms, very carefully, enfolding her like a flower he didn’t want to crush. “You’re not going to feel like this forever,” she assured him. “It’s just a few more days, then you’ll be back to normal.” Or what passed for normal around here, anyway. He nodded, nose buried in her hair, inhaling her comforting scent and trying to believe what she said.

Rachel sat there for a couple of minutes until she felt him relax slightly. “So… you wanna take that shower now?” she asked gently.

“Okay,” Jeremy responded easily, as though it was no big deal at all, and he popped up agilely, helping Rachel stand at the same time. Nonchalantly he started to take off his pants and she swiftly turned away, trying to put herself firmly in caregiver mode.

“Okay, well, I’ll get these blankets out of here,” Rachel decided, gathering up the wet bedding. “And after you take your shower and get dressed”—because apparently that did _not_ go without saying—“we’ll go have some breakfast.” She exited the bathroom quickly, shutting the door behind her as she ascertained he was, in fact, getting into the shower.

Once more or less alone in the bedroom, Rachel flopped back on the bed with a huge sigh. Barely eight-thirty and she already felt like she’d done a day’s work. What was she going to do with Jeremy all day? If Susan and Karl took him exercising in the basement gym again that would keep him occupied, productively, for a while. She wasn’t sure if it was really a good idea to feed his imagination with books or movies right now. And what with the distinct _lack_ of appointments other doctors and analysts (except Dr. Zhu) were trying to make with him, she got the impression no one else wanted to be in a confined space with him, or thought he had anything useful to say to them. And although Dr. Zhu _was_ clamoring to get her hands on him, Director Quarles had left that up to Rachel’s discretion, and she knew Jeremy would just think it was a punishment. Rachel figured he felt bad enough right now as it was.

Rachel took a deep breath and steeled herself, then stood and looked around the small room. She didn’t know how often the maintenance staff changed the sheets, but Jeremy’s looked wrinkled and _used_ , for lack of a better word, plus the top sheet and all the blankets were in a wet pile on the floor. She gathered them up and tried to stuff them all down the laundry chute—there was yet another level below this one—but realized she had been too impatient and succeeded only in blocking the entire opening. She dragged the blankets _back_ out and restuffed them one at a time, hoping Jeremy was going to take a _long_ shower. Then she stripped away the bottom sheet and pillowcases and discarded those, too.

Rachel opened a few cabinets but didn’t find any extra sheets around—maybe the maintenance staff brought them, like at a hotel. She was about to call and ask for someone to come and make the bed this morning when she heard the water shut off, and she decided to just ask Jeremy what he knew about it.

She gave him a couple minutes, then called, “Jeremy?”

“Yes, Dr. Ward?” he answered from inside the bathroom, his tone reassuringly normal.

“Do you have clean sheets here, or do I have to call for them?”

“I have some here,” Jeremy told her. There was a pause. “Do you want them?”

“Yeah, no rush, whenever you get a chance,” Rachel replied. “I just want to make the bed.”

Jeremy opened the bathroom door, letting out a puff of steam. He held out a small stack of sheets, slightly damp from the humidity but crisply folded. “Oh, you’ve got a linen closet in there,” Rachel realized. “I must’ve missed that. Do you have a couple of extra pillowcases? What about extra blankets?”

“Are you building a fort?” Jeremy wanted to know. He seemed interested in this activity, but Rachel wasn’t sure it was healthy for him.

“No, I told you, I just want to make the bed,” she reiterated. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

He followed her out. “Do you need help?”

“No, I’m fine, finish getting ready,” Rachel insisted, since he was standing there completely naked. The agents as a general rule didn’t really have issues with nudity, which was useful in some ways—like when conducting a medical exam—but awkward in others.

Rachel made the bed while Jeremy brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and finally put some clothes on. The end effect was not in any way polished, but he seemed to spend a long time getting there. But this might have been due to the medication: whenever she didn’t sense movement from the bathroom for a while she stuck her head in and often found him staring fixedly at his reflection in the mirror, gingerly touching different parts of his face or the air around it.

“Jeremy,” Rachel prompted, when she feared he was getting too caught up.

He turned to her suddenly. “Do I look different to you?” he wanted to know.

“Do you have horns, scales, or whiskers? No,” Rachel assured him.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why would you guess those things, if I didn’t have them?”

Rachel rolled her eyes and went back to making the bed. She even fluffed the pillows and propped them up against the headboard, looking at her work with some satisfaction. Then Jeremy walked over and plopped down on the bed to put his shoes on.

“Jeremy!” Rachel couldn’t help exclaiming in indignation. Then he froze in alarm and she immediately felt bad, because right now she should be saving that tone for when he was doing something potentially harmful. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she reversed, calmly. “Everything’s fine.”

“Are you having hallucinations, Dr. Ward?” Jeremy asked with concern. He still seemed afraid to move, holding his shoe in mid-air.

“No, it’s okay, continue with what you were doing,” Rachel insisted. Once he relaxed slightly she added, “Sorry, I was just being foolish. I made the bed, and then you just sat on it without even—“ She shook her head, embarrassed. “It was stupid.”

Jeremy looked around at the bed he was sitting on. “You _made_ this?” he asked, sounding impressed.

“Jeremy, even _you_ know what ‘make the bed’ means,” Rachel reasoned, not sure where his mind was going now.

“It’s very nice,” he told her sincerely. He turned and swung his feet up onto the mattress. “Do you want to come and sit here with me?” He held out his hand and Rachel realized how tense his muscles were, despite his light tone.

“Okay,” she agreed, climbing onto the bed and taking his hand. He stared at the foot she rested on the floor until she picked it up and tucked it underneath herself. “Where do you think we are?”

“In a boat, on the ocean,” he replied, and she nodded along. “I guess you _made_ the boat? So that’s good. It’s a nice boat.”

“Are the waters around us full of sharks?” Rachel guessed.

Jeremy leaned over the side of the bed to check. “No sharks, but there are whales. Finbacks, I think. They could easily capsize us when they surface.” His brow furrowed. “Can you swim?”

“Yes, I can swim,” Rachel assured him. She waited a moment. “So, did you want to have breakfast now, or…?”

“Oh, okay,” Jeremy agreed, hopping off the bed easily and heading for the food Rachel had brought. A ‘walking on water’ joke sprang to mind but she shelved it, since it would only confuse him. “I’m going to save this for later,” he went on, putting the cereal and milk carton in the mini-fridge, “because I don’t like having sweets so early in the day.”

“You gonna eat your orange now?” she checked.

He picked it up. “Yes. But I was promised a waffle with strawberries.” Somehow he managed to not lose track of that.

Rachel smiled a little and stood. “Okay, then. Final inspection.” She walked around him, making sure he was wearing all articles of clothing appropriately. “Check your fly,” she advised, and he did. “Alright, you’re cleared for public viewing,” she judged, and they headed for the door.

“I thought you said you were going to make the bed?” Jeremy asked in confusion as they passed the wrinkled blankets, and Rachel rolled her eyes.

They passed the guard station and entered the elevator, and Jeremy started to peel his orange, discarding bits of the peel casually on the floor. “Jeremy,” Rachel complained, picking them back up.

“They’re biodegradable,” he insisted.

“We’re not outdoors,” she corrected, dropping the refuse into a trash can as they exited the elevator.

He looked around. “Oh. But I hear parrots.” She shook her head. “No parrots?”

“No parrots.” He seemed disappointed.

“Would you like some?” he asked politely, offering her an orange wedge. “It hasn’t been cooked yet, though,” he warned.

“Thanks, I’ll take my chances,” Rachel assured him, taking the fruit. “So how long have you liked oranges? Since you started in the program, or before?”

Jeremy frowned. “I don’t remember anything from before,” he admitted.

“Oh,” Rachel commented, wondering if perhaps she shouldn’t have brought it up. Now probably wasn’t the best time for reminiscing, anyway.

Jeremy turned his head suddenly, watching something invisible zip down the hall. His steps meandered as he looked back over his shoulder and Rachel looped an arm through his to steady him, regaining his attention. He did a double-take towards her, then not-very-subtly leaned back as if he was checking out her rear end. His expression was mildly surprised, not lecherous, but she still felt the need to prompt him.

“Jeremy.”

He straightened up. “Oh, sorry.”

“Do I look nice with a tail?” Rachel asked him dryly, as his eyes once more slid behind her. “Is it a nice, fluffy cat tail, at least?”

“I would say it’s more reptilian,” Jeremy judged. “But your scales are very shiny.”

“Well that’s good.” They entered the dining room as Jeremy polished off the orange, and he paused to very carefully dispose of every last bit of peel in a garbage can. Rachel guided him over to a table set off to the side, ignoring his occasional distracted utterance. They usually passed quickly. “Okay, you wait here, and I’ll be right over there getting the waffle,” she pointed out.

“Can I sit up here?” he asked, touching the tabletop.

“Yes,” Rachel allowed, “but don’t put your feet up there.” He nodded and hopped up onto the table, keeping his feet in a chair.

Rachel went over to the waffle station and placed her order, turning to keep an eye on Jeremy while she waited. At one point he started to draw his knees up, but then he seemed to remember her order and forced himself to keep his feet off the table, even though he didn’t want them on the chair anymore. Rachel felt that was a good sign, that he could overcome what his senses were telling him—though it had to be very difficult.

After a moment Rachel saw Susan Bates approach Jeremy, who was now rocking precariously on the edge of the table. “Are you an egg?” Susan asked politely, and Jeremy gave her a confused look.

“No,” he said, putting his feet back down on the chair.

Karl settled down at the same table with a plate of food and grunted at the others in acknowledgement. Jeremy blinked at him, then at Susan, then looked around the room and took his jacket off. That was normal enough, but then he started removing his shirt as well.

Susan stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Why are you taking your clothes off?” she asked curiously.

He glanced between her and Karl. “I’m not supposed to? Everyone else has.”

Susan took another look just to be sure, then shook her head. “No, they haven’t.”

“I agree,” Karl pronounced, when Jeremy gave him an uncertain look.

Rachel finally returned with the waffle. “Hey, guys,” she greeted the other two agents. “Anything wrong?” she added, as looks pinged around the table.

“Dr. Ward, are—“ Jeremy interrupted himself when he turned to her, his eyes widening. It was a familiar expression by now—but then he quickly averted his eyes, took a couple of surreptitious peeks, and generally became extremely awkward, which was new.

“Jeremy, are you okay?” Rachel asked in concern. She set the waffle on the table and reached for him. “Here, sit down and eat something.”

If she didn’t know it to be quite unlikely, she would swear Jeremy was _blushing_ right now. “I’m—going to the bathroom,” he stammered, turning and heading for the door.

“Well—“ Rachel hesitated, then started to follow. He didn’t need to be peeing in a potted plant thinking it was a urinal or anything like that.

“I’ll go,” Karl offered, and Rachel thought the large blond man’s expression had a hint of _amusement_ in it—possibly even more unlikely than Jeremy blushing.

“Thanks, Karl,” Rachel told him, still confused, as he disappeared after Jeremy. “What was that about?” she asked Susan.

The woman shrugged. “Can I have some waffle?” she wanted to know, gazing at it eagerly.

“Sure,” Rachel allowed, sitting down at the table. “Don’t eat more than half.”

After a few minutes Jeremy and Karl returned, everything seemingly normal, and Jeremy began tucking into the waffle. “I like strawberries,” he decided.

“Better than oranges?” Rachel teased.

“No,” he said seriously. “They spoil too easily.”

“Can Jeremy come to the basement gym with us today, Dr. Ward?” Susan asked her.

“Sure, if he wants to,” Rachel agreed. “You guys spend a lot of your time working out, don’t you? What else do you do? Maybe play music, or do some kind of craft—“ She stopped when she saw their expressions. “Yeah, I kind of figured not,” she admitted. Anything remotely competitive was out as well, to avoid conflict between the agents; and she couldn’t risk letting Jeremy go outside for any activities there.

“Exercise, talk to doctors and analysts, sleep, eat, shower,” Susan listed. It was not a big list to begin with; and even smaller for Jeremy right now, what with the elimination of doctor and analyst appointments, and the danger of letting him sleep too much.

“We also do mission research,” Karl added, “when we have a new mission.” Jeremy did not have a new mission, of course, as well Karl knew, but he watched Rachel expectantly anyway.

She got the idea. “Sure, you spend a lot of time in the library, right? Maybe Jeremy could read some non-fiction books. Nothing too vivid,” she cautioned. “Like, cookbooks or travel guides or something.” She was not getting a lot of feedback from the agents. “What do you think?”

“Peggy could help us,” Susan decided sagely. That was the elderly librarian she liked.

“But remember not to let him hurt anyone, or himself,” Rachel warned. “Maybe you guys could get some books, and he could read in my office.” She didn’t want to completely shirk her responsibilities, of course; and Karl and Susan probably had other things to do with their day. Or maybe not—maybe the agents got bored with their routine at the Center but were just trained not to show it.

She noticed Jeremy had stopped eating the waffle, although he wasn’t finished yet, and was now staring at his arm that rested on the table. He poked at it gently with a finger from his other hand, as though he wasn’t certain what it was for. “Question, Jeremy?” Rachel asked idly.

“No, I’ll take care of it,” Jeremy assured her. Then he picked up his arm with his other hand and—for lack of a better word—tried to fling it away, like he was tossing aside a stick. The arm flew, and Jeremy tumbled out of his chair after it.

“Oh, G-d, are you okay?” Rachel asked, kneeling on the floor beside him.

“I’m fine,” Jeremy assured her, though he seemed rather mystified about what had just happened. Before she could stop him he tried to throw the same arm away again, succeeding only in spinning around on the floor and falling over. Susan leaned over to watch him with a frown, while Karl just seemed bored.

“Stop it,” Rachel told him. “What do you think is going on?”

“Well, there’s an arm here,” Jeremy noted calmly, “and it seemed unsanitary to keep it in the cafeteria.”

“So you wanted to throw it across the room?” Karl asked flatly, clearly thinking this a poor idea.

“You’re right,” Jeremy conceded. “I should take it to the medical zone and dispose of it properly in the incinerator.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Rachel insisted when he started to stand, holding his arm by the wrist. “What do you mean, ‘an’ arm? It’s _your_ arm, Jeremy.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, contradicting her with great politeness.

“This arm here?” Rachel checked, laying her hand on it, as though the floor was strewn with limbs. Well, maybe to Jeremy it was. “This is _your_ arm.”

“It might be attached inside my sleeve,” he suggested doubtfully, “though that’s an odd thing to do to someone.”

Rachel glanced up at the other two agents to see if they could back her up on this. Susan was pinching her own arm and wincing, as though suddenly doubtful herself; and Karl was merely working his way through his massive plate of breakfast without interest in them. So, not much help, then.

“Jeremy,” Rachel told him seriously, “okay, if that’s not your arm, then where _is_ your arm?” This question caused him more alarm than she’d intended, as he began looking around and patting himself down with his single recognized hand. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, calm down—“

“Do you want to lose an arm for real?” Karl asked tonelessly, spearing a sausage link. He waved it in what Rachel felt was a somewhat menacing fashion.

“Karl,” she chided. She did not need him bullying Jeremy right now.

But Jeremy popped up and knelt on his chair. “Can I have that?” he asked, and he took the offered sausage link—with the arm he’d previously denied recognizing. “I haven’t had enough protein lately,” he assessed, gnawing on it.

“Are you sitting on the floor for a reason, Dr. Ward?” Susan asked her, as if afraid she’d missed something.

“No, no reason at all,” Rachel sighed, starting to stand. Jeremy moved to help her. “Thank you.” She did not acknowledge Karl—yes, he’d been useful, but also deliberately provocative in her opinion, and she could do without that right now.

“Did you get enough breakfast, Jeremy?” she asked, watching him pick food off Susan’s plate in between bites of his waffle.

“Enough for the moment, I guess,” he assessed. “I’m going to go exercise next, right? So I shouldn’t eat too much.”

“Good point.”

Jeremy gave her a concerned look. “Did you get enough coffee, Dr. Ward?” he checked in turn.

Rachel thought about her half-finished latte left behind in his room. “Oh, there can never be enough coffee,” she judged, and he gave her a concerned look. “Don’t worry, I’ll have some more later.”

Karl and Susan finished their breakfast and got up to put their plates away, and Jeremy stared after them for a moment. Then he stood and offered Rachel his hand in a formal way. “May I have this dance?” he inquired seriously.

She smiled and took his hand, thinking _this_ was a delusion she could get used to. He rested one arm lightly on her lower back and swayed gently back and forth to some music only he could hear, expertly guiding Rachel around the floor in a small circle. Jeremy had a natural rhythm, which she supposed went along with his powers of agility.

“You’re a good dancer,” Rachel complimented him.

“Thank you,” he said politely, deftly maneuvering his feet away from Rachel’s.

“Oh, sorry.” Maybe ‘natural rhythm’ didn’t exactly describe _her_.

“Thank you for coming in to work on a holiday to look after me,” Jeremy went on, and the sincerity in his eyes was authentic even if his grasp of reality was lacking. “I know how important Groundhog Day is in your culture.”

“Well, I _am_ missing the annual groundhog roast,” Rachel deadpanned. Jeremy nodded as though he understood this.

“I am beginning to think getting bitten by that snake was not such a good idea,” he admitted conversationally, and Rachel frowned at him.

“Don’t you try to tell me you got bit on _purpose_ ,” she warned, “because I’ll be very upset with you. And I’m not sure I would believe you right now anyway,” she decided, which gave her some comfort. He was probably about to claim he and the snake had a long conversation about it beforehand or something.

“Well, not on _purpose_ ,” Jeremy asserted, “but I was hiding, and I thought hiding somewhere there might be snakes would be clever.”

“What definition of the word ‘clever’ are we using here?” Rachel wanted to know.

“The one that means, no one would think to look for me there,” Jeremy clarified, as he spun her around the cafeteria floor.

“Because it was really dangerous.”

“It wasn’t really dangerous to _me_ ,” he countered. “Comparatively. I had an antivenom kit, not to mention enhanced healing abilities.” His brow furrowed. “I did not consider the possible side effects of the antivenom follow-up regimen,” he admitted.

This was all sounding disturbingly rational to Rachel, or at least consistent with normal Jeremy-logic. “You know, just because you heal _faster_ , doesn’t mean you can heal from _everything_ —“ she started to remind him, when she noticed he was no longer listening to her but rather staring over her shoulder at something. The dancing ground to a halt. “Jeremy?” Rachel questioned.

He didn’t take his eyes off whatever he thought he saw. “Do you see someone standing near the coffee bar?” he asked Rachel, his expression troubled but not afraid.

She turned in his arms to look. “There’s Kate Thomas,” she replied. “The barista. No one else.” He was not talking about either of those people. “Who do _you_ see?”

“Me,” he revealed, which explained his confusion.

“You see yourself standing over there?” Rachel confirmed. “As you are right now, like you’re looking into a mirror?”

“No, younger,” he described. “Maybe ten or fifteen years ago.”

Rachel repressed the urge to shiver. “Okay, that’s kind of creepy,” she allowed, “but remember, he’s not real, he can’t hurt you.”

“He couldn’t hurt _anybody_ ,” Jeremy dismissed, with a touch of disdain that surprised Rachel.

Suddenly Karl stepped in front of them, cutting off their communion with the Ghost of Jeremy Past. “Ready?” he asked abruptly.

Jeremy blinked rapidly and looked around, as if landing back on Earth after a trip to another world. “Okay, sure,” he agreed, carefully detaching himself from Rachel.

“Yeah, so, a couple hours in the basement gym, then come back and see me, okay?” Rachel instructed him, before they could lose focus again. “And it would be nice if you showered and changed after exercising,” she hinted. One tussle into the shower was enough for her today.

Jeremy nodded and began to walk away with Karl and Susan. “Thanks, guys, I owe you some donuts,” she promised them.

“I don’t like donuts,” Karl rumbled contrarily.

“Fine, I owe you some…” Rachel tried to think about what hearty, blond Viking-types liked to eat. “…elk,” she finally said, lamely. Karl’s expression said this would be more acceptable to him.

As soon as the three of them left the cafeteria Rachel went over to the coffee bar and ordered herself a large iced mocha. Even with Karl and Susan watching Jeremy for a while, it was obviously that kind of day.

**

Jeremy spent the next hour or so quietly working out in the basement gym, running laps, lifting weights, and using select pieces of equipment under Karl and Susan’s watchful eyes, not to mention Rachel in her office. The video feed on her computer was almost more distracting than useful as she tried to work, especially when Jeremy appeared to have the greatest naval adventure of all time while using the rowing machine. Rachel thought maybe it was okay to find it entertaining as long as he didn’t seem upset by whatever he was imagining.

Then he started moving some of the equipment around and Rachel gave her full attention to the video, in case he started building himself a fort or tried to rearrange something that shouldn’t be moved. He set up a series of high bars and trampolines under a trapeze that hung from the ceiling, and when he’d tested everything thoroughly, he drew back a few meters and came at it at a run. Leaping for the first bar, Jeremy executed a jaw-dropping acrobatic routine of flips and bounces, sailing through the air with power and grace. When he landed at the other end he went down on one knee and spread his arms with a flourish.

Then he looked around, slightly perplexed, and got up and did it over again. And again, and again.

The first time had been flawless, in Rachel’s opinion. Thrilling, but smooth and confident. The subsequent routines, though containing basically the same moves, were rougher as Jeremy pushed himself to flip faster, leap higher, barely snatch onto the bar as he flew over it rather than gripping it firmly. And always, when he landed, he took the same posture, which seemed increasingly expectant to Rachel.

After some debate she decided to call Karl. Susan seemed more inherently compassionate towards Jeremy, but Karl had demonstrated a better grasp of reality. “ _Lund_ ,” Karl said gruffly into the phone, after he’d put down the weights he was lifting.

“What’s Jeremy doing?” Rachel asked, hoping maybe he’d mentioned something.

Karl glanced over at him. “ _Gymnastics_ ,” he conveyed unhelpfully.

“What’s he doing at the _end_?” Rachel pressed more specifically.

“ _Landing_.”

Now she felt Karl might be deliberately stonewalling her, probably as punishment for disrupting his workout. “Well next time he does it, applaud him,” Rachel suggested. Karl turned to face a camera, giving her a pained look. “It won’t kill you to clap your hands, Karl,” she assured him, rolling her eyes. “I think he’s waiting for it, and I’m worried he’s just going to keep going and get hurt.”

Karl made a slight huff and ended the call, but Rachel trusted her point had been taken. On the screen she watched him wander over to Jeremy’s gymnastics obstacle course, signaling Susan to join him. They watched his latest version of the routine, his body contorting painfully in midair to get in one more twist, arms straining to reach down to the bars as he vaulted over them, the trapeze now not even much of a challenge to catch. He stuck the landing at the end, then knelt and waited.

Slowly, a protest against foolishness in every motion, Karl began to clap. Susan joined in more enthusiastically. Jeremy popped up to his feet and bowed in several directions, then held up his hand and waved grandly, as though saluting a large crowd filling the space all around him. Then he shook himself a little and ambled over to a stationary bicycle to ride it instead. Karl turned to look pointedly at a camera, unimpressed, then went back to lifting weights.

**

Jeremy was delivered to Rachel’s office around eleven, still damp from his post-workout shower. “He thought the locker room was the rainforest,” Karl reported without amusement. “He keeps asking for a machete to cut through the undergrowth.”

“I told you not to tell her that!” Jeremy protested in a tone of betrayal.

“No machetes,” Rachel denied him sternly.

“I _know_.”

“Jeremy was very authentic as a poisonous tree frog,” Susan encouraged.

Rachel wasn’t sure where to go with that. “Hey, thanks, guys,” she told the other two agents. “I’ll hang out with him for a while, maybe call you guys in the afternoon for another session. I don’t want to keep you from whatever else you’ve got planned today.”

“Usually Jeremy and I spar, or stalk things in the woods,” Susan pointed out.

“I can’t do that right now,” Jeremy reminded her quickly.

“I know,” Susan acknowledged. “I’ll go to the library and find you some books.”

“I have physical therapy,” Karl rumbled. “He’s taking off his clothes again,” he added to Rachel.

She didn’t turn to look. “He’s a regular little nudist, isn’t he?” she noted dryly.

“It’s just my shoes!” Jeremy insisted, slightly frantic. “They’re shrinking!”

“See you later, guys,” Rachel told Karl and Susan as they departed. She turned to watch Jeremy hopping out of his shoes and socks. “Maybe it’s your feet that are getting bigger,” she suggested idly.

“Well, I think it’s okay now,” he decided cautiously. “Can I stay barefoot?”

“Sure,” Rachel shrugged. “As long as we don’t go anywhere. So,” she began expansively, “what would you like to do? Any thoughts?”

Jeremy gazed around her office and his eyes fixed on the couch. “Can I take a nap?”

Rachel’s brow furrowed in concern. “Why?”

He blinked at her. “I’m tired.”

“I mean, why are you tired?” she clarified, feeling his forehead. “Do you feel sick? Did you pull a muscle exercising? Those were some pretty wicked acrobat moves you were doing.”

Jeremy gave a curious little twitch. “I feel like my morning has been very eventful already,” he admitted.

“Oh, sure, I guess between the finback whales and losing your arm and that epic naval battle and the rainforest, you must be pretty tuckered out,” Rachel agreed. She said it lightly, but considering that each hallucination produced a genuine physical response, he probably _was_ exhausted. Plus she wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d actually gotten in the night. “Yeah, take a nap, that’s fine.”

Jeremy curled up on the couch and Rachel draped a blanket over him. “Is the light too bright in here? I can work at Jenny’s desk—“

“I would like you to stay in here,” Jeremy requested, and Rachel smiled.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Let me know if you need anything.”

**

Jeremy opened his eyes suddenly, disoriented. The feeling did not go away as he looked around Dr. Ward’s office. He _knew_ it was Dr. Ward’s office, but the walls leaned in at the wrong angles as though about to collapse, and the floor rose to meet him as he struggled to sit up. The room was perfectly normal, he told himself, watching his own hand shrink and swell before his eyes. It was just a hallucination, an adverse chemical reaction in his brain. Knowing this did not, however, make it easier to stay on his feet and he wobbled heavily to his knees on the carpet.

“Doctor—“ He felt like something bad was going to come out of his mouth if he opened it, or maybe like something was holding his mouth shut from within. “Dr. Ward!” he finally choked out, or thought he did.

Then something else caught his attention—a scent, a scent that triggered alarms in his brain. Smoke. Jeremy crawled awkwardly to the wall and clawed himself up it, sniffing near the ventilation cover. The scent was stronger there. There was smoke coming into the room from a fire somewhere else in the building, then. And he didn’t hear the fire alarms going off, though he _did_ hear the purring of Dr. Ward’s computer and the hum of the sunlamp in the window. And that meant no one else knew about the fire, or they couldn’t get to an alarm.

Jeremy tried to walk across the room to the door but staggered like he was on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. The smoke filled his senses and he couldn’t track Dr. Ward, find her fresh scent in a room pervaded with it. But he _had_ to find her, had to find her and get out of the building.

She came around the corner suddenly, her shape distorting like an image in a funhouse mirror. “Jeremy, did you—Hey, are you feeling okay?”

He decided the answer to that question was obvious. “Smoke,” he told her, forcing the word out. “Fire. We have to go.” He took her hand, carefully, and aimed for the doorway, pinging off the doorframe that seemed to jump out at him.

Dr. Ward tugged on his hand, resisting. “Jeremy, there’s no smoke, there’s no fire,” she told him earnestly. “You’re just imagining it.”

He shook his head, which did his disorientation no favors. “I can smell it, I smell the smoke,” he insisted. “We have to go.” He put his arm around Dr. Ward and propelled her along, trying to take all the crashes into furniture and walls himself.

She was trying to detach herself from him. “Jeremy. Jeremy! Listen to me. You’re sick. You’re having hallucinations,” she explained, her tone strenuously calm.

“I _know_ ,” he replied, more sharply than he’d intended, but the smoke smell was getting stronger and he could barely walk straight, and they were only in the outer office. “I’m hallucinating that the floor keeps tilting,” he tried to tell her, watching her skeptical, worried expression compress and expand like a bubble in a lava lamp. “But the smoke is _real_.”

“How do you know?” Dr. Ward demanded. She planted her feet and would not move. “What makes you think you can tell the difference? _I_ don’t smell any smoke. There’s no alarms.”

He didn’t want to hurt her. He _couldn’t_ hurt her. He didn’t trust his balance if he picked her up. But he might have to risk it, if she wouldn’t come on her own. Jeremy stepped up close to her suddenly. “I smell the smoke like I smell you,” he stated, inhaling her familiar scent, indescribably and comforting.

Dr. Ward stared up into his eyes. “Jeremy, you have to be careful,” she murmured, and he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see her face change shape unnaturally. “You’re delusional. You can’t trust your senses right now.”

He couldn’t trust his eyes, that was true, or his sense of balance, even with his eyes shut. But if he could smell Dr. Ward, smell her and recognize every molecule, then the olfactory receptors in his brain must be functioning correctly. And thus he really smelled smoke.

“We have to go,” he repeated, and he picked her up and surged towards the door, hoping she had sense enough not to trip him.

“Jeremy, stop,” Dr. Ward ordered, staying remarkably still in his arms. “Jeremy! Stop and put me down.” She was getting mad, he could hear it and feel it, and he didn’t want her to get mad at him.

“I’m being careful,” he argued. “I’m not running. I’m not grabbing.” He froze at the point in the hallway where he had to decide between the elevator and the stairs. You weren’t supposed to use an elevator during a fire; but he wasn’t sure he could walk safely down the stairs, especially not carrying Dr. Ward. He set her down.

“Thank you,” she told him. “Okay, let’s just think this through,” she went on. “Why don’t I call Susan or Karl up here, and they can sniff around and see if they smell the smoke or not?”

“There’s no time,” Jeremy countered. He had to get her downstairs and out of the building. “Dr. Ward, we have to—“

“Jeremy, stop and think—“

“Listen to me!” he snapped in frustration, and she drew back slightly. He didn’t mean to scare her, that was the last thing he wanted. Well, the _last_ thing he wanted was for her to burn to death inside the Center, or die of smoke inhalation. He put his hands on her upper arms very gently, feeling the crush of fabric under his palms, using it to gauge the right amount of pressure to apply, trying to show her he was still in control of _some_ things. “We’re going down to the first floor,” he told her firmly. “I can’t walk straight so you have to walk on your own. Dr. Ward, do you understand?”

She frowned and put her hand against his forehead. “Are you feeling dizzy? You should lie down—“

Jeremy made a growl of impatience and headed for the stairs. He didn’t want to risk pulling on her, instead trusting that she would follow after him on her own. And she did.

“Jeremy! Jeremy!” Sometimes he hated that name, it seemed so—he wasn’t sure, something about the rhythm, fussy and too long, easy to overuse. He concentrated on gripping the stair rail, closing his eyes to remove one source of conflicting information, knowing from the sound of her footsteps that she was close behind him.

They were never going to make it downstairs in time at this rate, though.

“Dr. Ward,” Jeremy began in a warning tone, “I’m going to do something you won’t like.”

He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Sweetie, can we please go back to my office?” she asked him, and his heart twisted in his chest.

“I can’t,” he denied, hoping she would understand how painful it was for him to upset her. “We really have to get downstairs faster.”

“Jeremy, what are you going to—“

He shook off her hand, closed his eyes, and vaulted over the railing, landing perfectly in the middle of the next staircase heading down. Well, that wasn’t so bad, he decided, and he tried again on the next one. This time he made the mistake of opening his eyes, saw the stairs reeling and jerking like a pinball table, and promptly lost his balance, tumbling down the stairs and bouncing off the wall like _he_ was the pinball. He heard Dr. Ward yelling after him, but this seemed a much more efficient method of travel than walking. After a particularly dramatic landing when his foot got caught in the railing and unrolled his protective ball formation, he decided to wait right there on the floor for Dr. Ward to catch up.

She knelt down next to him. “Are you okay?” she asked worriedly, probing his skull for fractures.

“Oh, not really,” Jeremy sighed. The bumps and bruises were inconsequential; but everything seemed like so much _work_ , and he’d upset Dr. Ward, and he was so tired.

But they didn’t let losers into this program, after all, so Jeremy pushed himself up to his feet. “What floor are we on?”

“First floor,” Dr. Ward admitted, which was where he wanted to be. He started to stagger towards the door. “Wait,” Dr. Ward said, and then she took his hand. “Okay, let’s go.” He understood that she didn’t really _believe_ him so much as she was trusting him to not be completely crazy—which didn’t sound so great when he put it that way, but he took it as a gesture of faith.

Jeremy pushed through the door into the main hall, trying to get his bearings in a place where the walls kept changing their angle to the floor and ceiling, bowing and flexing like a living thing. He didn’t smell the smoke anymore, hadn’t for a while, but he thought that was just because they’d moved away from the source. He knew how Dr. Ward would interpret that, though, when he had to admit it to her.

“Ah. Well,” she responded, “that’s good. Do you want to get some lunch in the cafeteria, since we’re here?”

Jeremy couldn’t blame her for not understanding. Normally she was very understanding, but medicine—logic, even—told her that he was not fully in control of himself. “There’s still a fire upstairs, Dr. Ward,” he insisted. “We have to go outside.”

“We can’t go outside,” she countered immediately. “Jeremy, if you get away from me and get off the grounds—“ This worried her greatly, worried her for his safety.

“I won’t get away from you,” he promised, knowing it would do little to reassure her. The nearest outside door, he thought, was on the other side of the gym, and he wobbled in that direction, firmly attached to Dr. Ward’s hand.

And then the fire alarm went off.

“What the _h—l_?” muttered Dr. Ward, more surprised to have his story confirmed, he suspected, than by the actual alarm. People began popping out of the rooms around them, heading for the nearest exit, and their movement warped Jeremy’s view even further, black holes bending the gravity of his vision. He closed his eyes again, fully able to navigate the halls blind although he couldn’t account for the other people.

“Jeremy!” Susan’s voice. “I went to Dr. Ward’s office to bring you some books, and it was all smoky!”

“Oh G-d,” Dr. Ward sighed. “Can you help me get him outside? He’s having trouble walking.”

“You said he wasn’t supposed to go outside,” Susan reminded her, even as she took his other arm.

“I know, but since there’s _actually_ a fire,” Dr. Ward conceded, “we’ll have to risk it. Come on.”

Jeremy leaned into Susan, knowing she could support his weight better, and trusted her to navigate while he concentrated on other things, like putting one foot in front of the other and not squeezing Dr. Ward’s hand too tightly. They burst out of the gym onto the back patio, the concrete cool and smooth under his bare feet even as he felt the warmth of the sun on the rest of him. He had spent so much time lately telling himself _not_ to go outside, trying to hang on to some semblance of control, that his first instinct was to reverse course.

“It’s okay, Jeremy,” he heard Dr. Ward say, soothingly. “It’s okay for you to go outside right now, if you stay with me.” He nodded tightly.

The concrete changed to prickly grass as they moved away from the building. He felt like he was trying to walk during an earthquake, the ground always closer or farther away than he’d anticipated with each step. Obviously this wasn’t a problem for anyone else. He wasn’t exactly embarrassed—embarrassment was not a useful emotion to him—but it frustrated him that he couldn’t help more, couldn’t even _walk_ on his own, when he knew it was just his brain refusing to get over its new chemical roommate. It wasn’t like he’d been _shot_ or anything.

When they stopped and turned, and he heard Dr. Ward exclaim beside him, Jeremy dared to open his eyes. Black smoke spewed from a broken window on the side of the building, somewhat high up but the floors wouldn’t stabilize enough for him to count them. A chair poked partially out of the window, knocking out more of the glass, indicating there were still people inside.

“I need an agent to climb up there right now and help them!” Dr. Ward shouted to the small crowd on the lawn. No one moved. Jeremy knew how they were all perceiving the scene: detached, with mild interest at best, something that really had nothing to do with them. “This is a test!” Dr. Ward added, desperately, and _then_ several of the agents sprang into action. They understood what a test meant.

Jeremy felt the urge to race to the building as well—he was the best climber, after all—but he refrained, knowing he was supposed to stay here with Dr. Ward. But it was hard to stay on the ground, when the sun was drawing him up towards it like a magnet, and he felt like he was rising slowly through the air with no effort at all on his part, like a helium-filled balloon.

“Jeremy.” Dr. Ward tugged on his hand, the tether that kept him from drifting away into the universe, and like a cartoon character who suddenly realized he’d run off a cliff and dropped like a rock, Jeremy crashed back to the ground with unexpected force. “Let’s just stay down here, okay?” Dr. Ward suggested, sitting on the grass and pulling his head into her lap.

He could feel the tension in her body as she watched the agents scale the wall and pull people from the broken window, passing them up to the roof. It was closer than the ground and anyway, climbers didn’t like to go _down_. He knew she wanted to be helping; but there were lots of doctors around, and she had a giant millstone on her lap, weighing her down.

“There should be a helicopter soon,” Jeremy commented idly. It seemed right that there would be one, to get the people off the roof. Wasn’t that what happened?

“What?” asked Dr. Ward.

“A helicopter. And cookies.” He wouldn’t call it a memory, more of an impression, or something he’d thought about a lot.

“Cookies? Oh, you’re probably starving,” Dr. Ward interpreted. “You slept straight through lunch. I guess I don’t know—Karl!” she called suddenly, and a large object eclipsed the light before Jeremy. “What’s going on? How bad is the fire?”

“It’s contained to one lab,” Karl replied, rumbling like a volcano about to spew ash and lava. Jeremy could feel it in his chest and rubbed at the spot. “The sprinklers went off and the firefighters are in there.”

“Oh, good,” Dr. Ward sighed. “Was anyone hurt?”

“I don’t know.” He paused, pensively. “Do you need help with him?”

“Karl is Mount Vesuvius,” Jeremy decided to tell them. It was crucial they understand that.

“Well, so far he’s been okay,” Dr. Ward allowed, rubbing Jeremy’s side in a pleasing way. “But Susan ran off to climb the wall, so it might be nice if you stuck around. If you weren’t helping somewhere else.”

“We aren’t supposed to help,” Karl informed her, even as he sat down just beyond Jeremy’s feet.

“Pompeii, Pompeii!” Jeremy warned, curling up tighter. Karl gave him a look of mild disgust.

“Once in training he shot himself in the foot with an arrow,” Karl shared.

“I don’t remember that,” Jeremy protested. He was very good at weapons handling, and an excellent shot.

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you,” Karl shrugged, and that was that.

The lawn seethed with guards, clerks, emergency personnel, medical staff, agents. Agents generally weren’t curious about things, but some could see the opportunity for future mission research and kept climbing on the fire trucks, trying to see how they worked. “Daniel! Juan! Get down from there,” Dr. Ward ordered. “Come here and sit with us.” Agents almost always did what Dr. Ward said, even when she was sitting on the grass with Jeremy’s head in her lap. Why was that?, he wondered. She said things in a special way, a magical way, and drew people in like elves following a trail of cheese—

“Are you delusional, or are you stoned?” she asked in amusement, ruffling his hair, and Jeremy pouted. It was _very important_ that she understand about the elves and the cheese—

“I could make him pass out,” Karl offered. “It wouldn’t do _much_ damage.”

“The elves will get you in the night, Karl,” Jeremy warned.

“So are we talking like Tolkien elves or Keebler elves or Santa’s elves or what?” Dr. Ward asked, getting into the anthropological spirit.

“Yes,” Jeremy avowed.

“I saw an elf once,” Juan shared.

“Stop,” Karl ordered him. Obviously that mission was classified.

“Dr. Ward!” snapped a new, unpleasant voice. “Did you order _agents_ to get involved in this incident? And why is Green outside?”

Dr. Ward tensed again. “I had the agents help rescue people who were trapped in a burning building, _sir_ ,” she replied tightly, leaning up to look at Director Quarles. “And I _had_ to bring Jeremy outside because—the building was burning.”

“Agents are _not_ supposed to get involved in—“

Jeremy was a tiger, and tigers didn’t pay attention to the things unpleasant people yelled at Dr. Ward. In fact, those people tended to make tasty meals, he remembered as he stalked around the man, sniffing him. He smelled something good in his pocket and started to claw at it. Hurriedly the man fished something from his pocket and Jeremy the tiger snatched it from his hand with his teeth.

“Sir!” Dr. Ward complained. “Jeremy, what have you got in your mouth? Come on, let me see.” Tigers did _not_ like having people poke at their mouths, unless they were offering snacks. “It still has the wrapper on it. That’s not good for you. Come on, spit it out. It’s yucky.”

Well, tigers didn’t eat yucky things. He disgorged the object into Dr. Ward’s hand. “Thanks, Jeremy,” she said dryly, dropping it on the ground.

“You shouldn’t litter,” Karl told her.

If a tiger couldn’t have a meal, a nap would do, so Jeremy curled up around Dr. Ward’s feet. He felt he could sleep for several hours, as long as she didn’t mind standing right there.

“I would be happy to take him back in the building, sir, whenever you gave the word,” Dr. Ward commented.

“I’ll check with the fire captain,” Quarles conceded, walking away.

“Dr. Ward!” Susan’s voice again. “How did I do on my test? I didn’t make it to the window first…” Karl’s snort said ‘loser.’

“You don’t even climb at all,” Jeremy scoffed at him, unwinding from Dr. Ward’s feet.

“Oh good, not a tiger anymore?” she asked as he stood up. “Only pull that one out for the boss, huh?”

Jeremy gazed around the lawn with some apprehension. It was not tilting anymore, but that only meant he could escape faster if he felt the urge. “I shouldn’t be outside,” he stated.

“Hold my hand,” Dr. Ward told him, and he did. “Now you can’t go anywhere.”

“Dr. Ward,” Susan pestered.

She quickly thought up something to say. “Well, it’s true, you didn’t reach the window first. But, you got to the roof first, and that was a good idea,” she encouraged. “You helped get people away from the fire, so I think you did a good job.”

Susan nodded seriously. “I’ll study the video footage.”

Jeremy watched the broken window as firefighters crossed it, examining the room. “Oh, it shares a wall with your office,” he realized. “That’s why I could smell the smoke.”

“S—t,” Dr. Ward swore. “I hope my office wasn’t damaged. Well, that’s a terrible thing to say,” she chided herself. “Does anyone know if anyone got hurt in the fire?” No one knew. “Hey, sorry if I—“ She stopped and thought about what she wanted to say to Jeremy. “Well, you were right about the smoke.”

“Yes,” Jeremy agreed.

“But I hope you understand why it was hard for me to believe you,” she went on.

“Yes,” Jeremy conceded. “Sorry if I scared you.” He remembered her startled expression very vividly.

“Well, it’s okay,” Dr. Ward assured him. “What a day for a fire alarm, huh? At least it’s nice out.”

“I would like to run into the woods and catch a bird and eat it,” Jeremy shared with her, looking longingly towards the trees. He knew he shouldn’t, though.

“Well, that’s a brownie for me,” Dr. Ward decided lightly. “Oh, good, they’re letting people back in. I hope the cafeteria’s open.” She headed back towards the building, towing Jeremy along behind her.

It seemed like a very long walk across the lawn, with every color of the world oversaturated, almost lurid, tempting him towards the grove of trees, the stables, the lake. Dr. Ward repeatedly tugged on his hand and he was always surprised to find that he’d wandered away from the proper direction. Finally they reached the doorway and Jeremy felt the urge to stop, digging his heels into the ground and bracing his free hand against the doorframe. He looked up at Dr. Ward, already inside, with a plaintive expression.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “You weren’t supposed to go outside, but you had to, so that’s fine. And now it’s okay to go back inside.”

So far, Jeremy’s hallucinations did not seem to involve detailed conversations with other people; which was a good thing, because otherwise he wasn’t sure how he could even walk around safely, without Dr. Ward explaining things to him. Even now it felt terribly, terribly wrong to cross the threshold of the door; but Dr. Ward said it was okay. And also Karl was right behind him, looming menacingly. He crossed.

“Okay!” Rachel said brightly, feeling much more relaxed once Jeremy was back indoors. Relatively speaking, of course. “So let’s go see if the cafeteria’s open, and then we’ll see about my office.” She grimaced a little, worried there might be considerable damage to it, if they would even let her up there. Of course all her records were digitized and backed up, but it would still be a real mess if she had to move somewhere else. Then once again she remembered to hope no one had been injured, just to show she wasn’t totally self-centered. “Then maybe in the late afternoon, you guys can take Jeremy to work out again,” she added to Karl and Susan, who were still following them.

“Maybe we could practice rescuing Jeremy from something,” Susan proposed thoughtfully, speaking to Karl. “It was difficult working with the others, we never practice that way. Well, we don’t _anymore_ —“ she qualified, but Karl cut her off with a sharp noise. They both glanced significantly at Jeremy, who didn’t seem to notice. This all made Rachel extremely curious, but she decided it was better to ask them about it later.

Apparently a number of people had the same idea about going to the cafeteria, but protocol said all heating elements should be turned off during a fire alarm, so right now there were only cold items available. And no coffee. Rachel took a soda instead, and her brownie, and hunted for a sandwich or hearty salad she could live with. Meanwhile, as soon as her back was turned, Jeremy started piling food on his tray like he was packing for a week in the Arctic.

“I’m really hungry,” he claimed, with a bit of a whine in his tone. “I slept through lunch and didn’t have much breakfast.”

“Well don’t get grumpy, I didn’t say anything,” Rachel pointed out. “I’m not your mom. Just don’t dump it on the floor or anything.”

They sat down at a table near the door to the hall, far away from the temptation of the patio door. “Can you sit on my lap?” Jeremy requested innocently.

“No,” Rachel told him firmly. She really wondered what kind of hallucination made _that_ make sense.

“Can _I_ sit on _your_ lap?” he reversed hopefully.

“No. Eat your food.”

“Uh, hey, Rachel,” said a voice behind her, and she turned to see Dr. Kedar holding a tray. “Quite a day, huh?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know you were here today,” she commented. “Have a seat.”

With a glance towards Jeremy, who remained quietly eating his food, Paul sat down across from Rachel. “Yeah, I just came in today to check on Juan Perez,” he told her. “He just had that surgery and he’s still a little jumpy with the other doctors.” He sounded a little bit proud of this fact, that one of the agents preferred _him_ over other people, and Rachel tried not to grin too much. She chose to interpret it as Paul finally seeing his patients in a more human light. Rather than just boasting to impress her.

“Yeah, I think Juan was really interested in that fire truck,” she replied. “He was climbing all over it earlier.”

Paul looked dismayed at this news and glanced around the room on the off chance Juan was present. “He’s not supposed to be _climbing_ on things,” he grumbled. “Oh, speaking of that, very clever idea with the agents, helping rescue people,” he complimented. “I heard Quarles was p‑‑‑‑d, though.”

“Yeah, well,” Rachel shrugged. “Hey, do you know if anyone was hurt?”

“Not seriously, I think,” Paul informed her. “They’re all down in the hospital wing. It was something about a Bunsen burner and a faulty laminar flow hood.” Rachel shuddered at the idea of how easily these accidents could happen. “Yeah, the lab is actually near your office, isn’t it?” he remembered.

She nodded glumly. “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to seeing what kind of a mess I’ve got up there,” she admitted. “But _fortunately_ ,” she went on more brightly, “Jeremy smelled the smoke and insisted we leave. We were all the way on the first floor when the alarm finally went off.”

“Yeah, and, uh, how’s Jeremy doing?” Paul asked her, unsure if he should address the agent directly or not. The man hadn’t spared him a glance since he’d sat down.

“Well, these hallucinations are really crazy,” Rachel told him. “I hope the lab is able to figure out what compound is causing them, because they could be quite dangerous. Did I tell you about the uncontrollable sneezing?”

“Yeah, you mentioned in the past—“

“I’m not sneezing uncontrollably,” Jeremy interrupted.

“No, it was another agent who was given a similar drug,” Rachel clarified. “That was _their_ unexpected side effect. I mean, the poor guy broke a rib from—“

“I’m not sneezing uncontrollably,” Jeremy repeated, in the same tone as before. Rachel turned to him with a frown. “I’m not snee—“ He stopped himself. “Did I say that already?” Rachel nodded slowly. “Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sor—“ She put her hand on his arm and he stopped with a sigh.

“It must be pretty frustrating,” Paul suggested, attempting to be sympathetic. Rachel got the impression he was eager to hear more clinical details but didn’t necessarily want to ask in front of Jeremy. “Are the venom levels in his blood dropping?”

“Yes, the regimen seems to be doing its job at least,” Rachel confirmed. “Three more doses to go, though.”

“You know, with the three past instances of strange side effects from three different drugs,” Paul suggested eagerly, “maybe we could figure out what all three drugs have in common, maybe even put in for some time with the Super Mice—“

“Oh G-d,” said Jeremy suddenly, dropping his fork with a clatter. He seemed genuinely distressed.

“What is it?” Rachel asked in alarm.

He jumped up from his seat like it was burning him. “Oh G-d, I can’t—“ He started to sniff and Rachel worried he was going to start crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked gently, standing slowly so as not to startle him. “Do you feel sick, or—“

He yanked her close suddenly. “Hey, be careful,” Paul warned sharply.

Jeremy ignored him, sniffing Rachel’s hair desperately. “I can’t smell anything!” he finally revealed.

Well honestly that was a lot better than what Rachel had been worried about. “You can’t smell anything?” she repeated, pushing back a bit.

“No!” he snapped frantically. “I can’t—I don’t know—“ He was _scared_ , and that bothered Rachel more than anything.

“It’s just part of the hallucinations, Jeremy,” she tried to tell him. “You’re fine, and it will go back to normal soon.”

This did not reassure him, however. “I don’t know who you are,” he breathed, horrified. “I don’t know where I am.”

Dread started to fill Rachel’s stomach. “Jeremy, you’re safe, you’re at the Center, do you remember the Center?”

He backed away when she reached for him. “I _remember_ but I don’t _know_ ,” he tried to explain. “I can’t smell, I can’t _confirm_ —“

“Okay, I understand,” Rachel told him simply. His sense of smell was so integral to his perception of the world—as he’d demonstrated earlier with the smoke—that its loss left him disoriented. And distrustful. She thought maybe that was still better than outright amnesia, though. “Just think about it logically. You were just sitting next to me at the table and you were fine, you knew it was me,” she pointed out. “Now I haven’t gone anywhere since then. I haven’t been out of your sight. So it must still be me.”

She could see him struggling to think this through, to remember, to parse every scenario by which someone might be deceiving him. Everyone in the cafeteria was staring at them, and she could see Karl lurking out in the hall in case he bolted. Whatever acrimonious history he and Jeremy had, Rachel had to say she’d been very impressed with Karl through all this.

On the other hand, maybe he was just looking for a way he could deck Jeremy without getting in trouble.

“Jeremy?” Rachel checked, after a long moment.

He sat down on the floor suddenly, drawing his knees up tight to his chin in a posture reminiscent of the scene in his bathroom this morning. Rachel immediately knelt down beside him and put her arms around him. “You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay,” she promised him.

“Am I?” he whispered fiercely. “Am I _really_?” Somehow she didn’t think he was just talking about the side effects of the medicine.

“Let’s go,” Rachel suggested to him. She didn’t like all the eyes on them or how he was starting to shiver. “Let’s go—to your room. How about that? We’ll hang out there for a while.”

“Can’t we go to your office instead?” he asked. “I like it there.” Much better than his room, his tone said.

“Well,” she hesitated, “remember, it might have been damaged in the fire. Maybe we should—“

She felt his body language change and scooted back quickly as he popped up, all trace of unhappiness gone. “We should go check on it,” he determined. “It might not be safe for you to go alone.” He reached down and nonchalantly pulled her to her feet, tilting his head curiously when she didn’t immediately agree.

“Can you smell okay?” she checked.

“Yes.” Like nothing was ever wrong, and she was odd for suggesting it.

Rachel sighed and turned back to grab her food. She wasn’t going anywhere without her soda and brownie. “Are you okay?” Paul asked her dubiously.

“Rollercoaster,” was all Rachel said to him, but that perfectly encapsulated her last few days.

Jeremy picked up his remaining food as well. “Are we having a picnic?” he wanted to know.

“We aren’t going outside,” Rachel reminded him as they left the cafeteria. She nodded at Karl as they passed; he merely turned and walked away.

“We can have an indoor picnic,” Jeremy decided.

“Oh, Susan, you want to pick Jeremy up later?” Rachel called as the woman stuck her head around the cafeteria doors. “Maybe around four?”

“Okay,” Susan agreed.

“That suit you, buddy?” Rachel asked Jeremy, who offered no objection.

“We’re going to be rescuing Jeremy from things!” Susan planned, and Rachel waved in acknowledgement since she didn’t feel like yelling back down the hall.

“Well that sounds fun,” she commented to Jeremy, trying not to be too sarcastic. She summoned the elevator but nearly lost her brownie in the process.

“I can carry your food,” Jeremy offered, indicating his tray.

“Thanks.” Rachel moved his plate over and put her salad and brownie down next to it. “You realize what will happen if any harm comes to my brownie,” she warned him.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” They stepped onto the elevator and started to ride it upwards. Rachel reached over and broke off a corner of her brownie to pop in her mouth. “This is my brownie for whenever you talk about killing things,” she reminded him.

“I remember.” He paused. “I think _I_ should get some brownie,” he reasoned, “because Dr. Kedar talked about experimenting on the Super Mice.”

Rachel did not want to get into a debate about the laboratory mice which were kept in one of the basements of the building. “Okay,” she agreed, and she fed Jeremy a piece of the brownie. The Super Mice had many of the same genetic alterations the agents did—mouse-style, of course—and were usually the first place new compounds and treatments were evaluated. “But you know, it would be helpful to understand what part of the antivenom regimen was causing these weird symptoms,” she couldn’t help pointing out.

“I want some more brownie,” Jeremy demanded, so she gave him some. The idea of the Super Mice often made the agents uncomfortable; maybe they felt too much kinship with them.

“I heard that originally they wanted to use monkeys or chimps,” Rachel remarked, “but somebody actually, you know, _thought about it_ and decided making a bunch of Super Monkeys would be a bad idea. So instead of _Rise of the Planet of the Apes_ we got _Pinky and the Brain_.”

Jeremy nodded slowly. “We aren’t really encouraged to view media relating to laboratory animals,” he pointed out.

“Understandable,” Rachel agreed. “There’d probably be rioting over _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_.”

“Karl doesn’t like rats,” Jeremy responded.

“You know, Karl’s been really good with you lately,” Rachel told him. “I have to say I’m really impressed with him, especially since you two don’t get along normally.”

“Sorry, I was momentarily imagining that you spoke Martian,” Jeremy claimed when she gave him an expectant look. “And I don’t.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Susan’s been nice, too.”

This, he was prepared to acknowledge. “Yes, I like Susan.”

The elevator let them out on her floor and Rachel opened the door to the outer office with trepidation. Everything seemed fine, though, except for the pervasive smoky smell. Rachel definitely couldn’t deny it now. It was the nasty, acrid sort of smoke, too, not a nice wood-burning scent.

“Ugh, we need to air this place out or something,” she commented. Though that was going to be tough with no real windows. She looked at the control panel by the door. “Can we make the door stay open? Maybe block it with something?” She blatantly ignored the prominent sign which read, ‘Do not prop doors open.’

“Yes, there’s a mechanism in the frame,” Jeremy informed her. He set the tray of food down on Jenny’s desk and, using his knees, gripped the wall on either side of the door frame and inched up until he could reach inside the housing at the top.

“You realize that if the door starts to close, it’s going to be very painful,” Rachel pointed out, already trying to figure out the proper terminology for ‘blunt force groin trauma’ for her report.

Jeremy did not seemed worried. “All I have to do is pull the right lever, and the coconuts fall from the tree,” he assured her.

She could imagine how his current position might lead to tree-climbing hallucinations. Still, “Loss of coconuts is what you should _avoid_ ,” she deadpanned.

Not finding her comment relevant he didn’t reply, merely dropping back down to the floor and stepping aside. The sliding door stayed open.

“Well done,” Rachel complimented. “I wonder if Maintenance has a box fan or something I could—“ Jeremy was climbing again, balancing precariously on the furniture as he opened the vent cover and wormed his way inside. “Hey! Jeremy! Come back out of there!” Rachel insisted, envisioning him escaping into the labyrinth of the duct system.

A rushing sound emerged from the duct and Jeremy squirmed back out, dropping neatly to the floor only slightly dirty. “I wasn’t trying to run away, Dr. Ward,” he promised. “I just turned the ventilation up to maximum, to help get rid of the smoke smell.”

“Oh. Well, good thinking,” she praised him. She opened the exam room door and again found no obvious damage except for the smell. She kept an eye on Jeremy as he fixed the door and ventilation again, then faced the final door, the one to her office. “Here goes,” she said, opening it.

“Oh,” commented Jeremy in disappointment. “That’s too bad, Dr. Ward.”

Rachel, who was actually feeling immensely relieved to see nothing wrong, glanced back over her shoulder at him. “What do you think is wrong?”

“There’s glitter _everywhere_!” Jeremy described. “Glitter is so hard to get rid of.”

“That’s modern firefighting for you,” Rachel replied dryly. “Can you do the doors and the vent, or are you afraid of the glitter?”

He seemed affronted at her suggestion of fear. “I can do it.”

“Okay. Very brave. Do the bathroom, too, please,” Rachel requested as her phone rang. “Ward.”

“ _Dr. Ward, we show that the door to your outer office has been open for longer than usual_ ,” a security monitor said. “ _Is anything wrong?_ ” His tone was not very concerned, however.

“No, we’re leaving it open to air out my office,” Rachel explained. “It’s very smoky in here.” As anyone would know, if they’d watched the last couple minutes of video footage of her and Jeremy. Maybe the security monitors were trained to assume ignorance first.

“ _You’re not supposed to prop the doors open_ ,” the monitor went on. “ _It’s a security risk_.”

“I get it,” Rachel assured him. “It’s only for a little while. My office shares a wall with the lab that caught fire, so—“

“ _It’s a security risk_ ,” the monitor repeated, interrupting her. Rachel did not like being interrupted. “ _Anyone could just walk in_.”

“Many forms of smoke are known carcinogens,” Rachel pointed out coolly. Jeremy froze at her tone, watching warily. “Being forced to inhale a carcinogen in my office would probably constitute a hostile work environment.”

She imagined the security monitor narrowing his eyes at the implicit threat. Hey, she knew the guy was just doing his job, but there was no need for rudeness. You’d think, what with the serious fire next door, the security monitors would all be scrambling to analyze _that_. “Well _, don’t leave the premises unattended with all the doors open_ ,” the monitor finally told her.

“Gotcha,” Rachel replied, and hung up. She had more immediate problems to deal with, like why Jeremy was taking the cushions off her couch.

“For our picnic,” he explained, arranging them around the coffee table. “So we don’t have to sit on the sand.”

“That _is_ uncomfortable,” Rachel agreed, following him as he retrieved the tray of food. With all the open doors he might just wander off. Security risk and all.

Jeremy set the tray on the coffee table, then sat down on a cushion to eat more, and Rachel followed suit. “So what do you want to do this afternoon?” she asked conversationally. “At four you go to exercise, and before that you have to take your next pill.”

This reminder made Jeremy very glum and he shrugged unhelpfully. “I feel very…” He struggled to come up with the word he wanted and Rachel waited patiently. “Useless,” he finally decided.

“You’re sick,” Rachel reminded him, perhaps predictably. “It’s like you have a broken leg or something. For a while you need extra help, then you’ll get over it and feel better.”

“You wouldn’t have to spend all your time with me if I just had a broken leg,” Jeremy pointed out.

“True,” Racehl agreed, because it seemed silly to deny it. “But it’s fine, really. I mean, it’s my job, and, well, you’re nice to spend time with.”

He snorted. “When I get upset about something that isn’t real?” he asked skeptically.

“Well, what do you want me to say, that’s my favorite part?” Rachel replied. “No. But if me being around helps you to stay out of trouble and get better faster, then that’s what I want.” Jeremy sighed but accepted this answer. “I saw the books Susan left on Jenny’s desk,” she went on after a moment, “so you can read those. And I thought of something else,” she added hesitantly. “I don’t know if you’ll be interested or not.” He gave her a questioning look and Rachel pushed to her feet, not very gracefully, and went to her desk. She came back with a pad of white paper and a box of crayons. “I thought maybe you would like to draw,” she explained, not sure if this was lame or not. “You could draw what you thought you saw, or anything really.” His lack of response shook her confidence. “Is it dumb?”

“Hmm,” Jeremy remarked vaguely. He set his tray aside, took out a crayon, and started drawing. “I think it’s a good idea,” he finally told her, selecting another color. “Dr. Zhu used to have us draw things, but she stopped. I think she realized we enjoyed it.” And that kind of summed Dr. Zhu up right there.

“Well good,” Rachel replied, relieved. It had been somewhat of a quest to find the paper and crayons, she was glad she hadn’t wasted her time. “So you do that, and I’ll be over at my desk doing stuff. But if you need anything, don’t hesitate to interrupt.”

“Will you play some music?” Jeremy requested.

“Sure,” Rachel agreed, queuing up a playlist on her computer. “Let’s start with some Ke$ha. I hope the security monitors like _that_.”

They both worked quietly for a while, Rachel glancing over at Jeremy frequently to check on him. Drawing seemed to absorb him and even if he sometimes looked up alertly, he usually went back to the paper quickly.

“So what are you drawing over there?” she finally asked, slightly apprehensive about the answer. “Can I see?”

“Yes,” Jeremy allowed, so she got up to look. He had produced numerous drawings, some apparently unfinished, and all of them more or less on the stick figure level. Music and dancing were his artistic fortes, not drawing, but she got the gist of them. At least, she recognized things like trees and octopi and bicycles, even if she didn’t understand what they were all doing together.

Now he was working on something else though, a multi-panel cartoon starring an expressionless stick figure with exaggerated arm and leg muscles. “This is Muscleman,” Jeremy explained, “who is played by Karl.” He withheld some of the pages suddenly. “You may require additional brownies,” he warned.

Rachel tried not to laugh. “Okay, let’s see it.”

The first sheet he gave her was more like a grisly first aid card, with Muscleman demonstrating various types of injuries and the proper emergency treatment of them. Jeremy was much better at depicting the severed limbs and puncture wounds than the first aid procedures, however. “It’s educational,” he insisted primly.

“Who’s the doctor character?” she asked, her lips twitching. The stick figure had long brown hair and a teal skirt.

“That’s Doctor,” Jeremy told her, “who is played by you.”

“Nice to know.”

“Muscleman is a modern action-adventure hero,” Jeremy described, “that is, an anti-hero in the sense of having multiple character flaws and questionable motives while pursuing noble goals.” He paused. “I was undercover as a literature graduate student once.”

“ _That_ must’ve been a dangerous assignment,” Rachel remarked.

“I got a lot of paper cuts,” Jeremy remembered. He handed her another sheet. “Here Muscleman is attacked by vampires while searching for truffles in a graveyard at midnight.”

“As one does.” Rachel noticed the vampire bit Muscleman on the upper arm, leaving two holes similar to Jeremy’s healing snakebite. “What’s the doctor giving him?”

“That’s a pill she _told_ him would prevent the vampire venom from damaging him,” Jeremy interpreted, “but really, it’s for snakebites. Nobody believes that he was really bitten by a vampire; so when he starts to act crazy, they’ll just think the snakebite medicine is making him hallucinate.”

Rachel looked up at him slowly. “Jeremy, you _did_ get bitten by a snake, right?” she checked.

“Yes, of course,” he assured her with a frown. “If I’d been bitten by a vampire I would’ve told you.”

“Okay.” She decided she was not going to let Dr. Zhu get her hands on these. “Uh, what’s happening in the next part?”

“Muscleman is going to hitchhike across the country to visit his estranged father,” Jeremy narrated, “which he considers to be a spontaneous and thus genuine expression of his longing for family connection and stability. But really it just shows he’s reckless and has poor impulse control.”

“This is a laugh a minute,” Rachel noted dryly.

“Due to his underdeveloped sense of self Muscleman is easily manipulated by others,” Jeremy went on, “but lacks the diligence to make himself useful to them. Here, he falls in with a group of Holocaust deniers, but is left behind when they flee their protest at a synagogue.”

“And then he’s rescued by a unicorn?” Rachel surmised.

“It’s magical realism. The unicorn may or may not be a figment of his imagination.” Rachel kind of wanted to ask if he was on drugs at this point, but then it occurred to her that she already knew the answer to that. At least he was expressing himself through art instead of a nervous breakdown.

“What’s going on here?” she redirected, pointing at the next page. “It looks like Muscleman and the doctor are waiting for the bus.” That seemed safe.

“Actually they’re about to be _hit_ by the bus,” Jeremy corrected blithely.

Rachel gave him an unamused stare. “ _Really_. That merits a piece of cheesecake, I think.”

“Oh, the next episode will reveal that the doctor miraculously escapes unharmed,” Jeremy assured her, although he hadn’t drawn that one yet. “It’s what we in the industry call a _cliffhanger_ , ending the episode with main characters in peril to heighten audience anticipation and retention.”

“I see,” Rachel commented, not sure if this absolved him or not. “But does Muscleman survive, too?”

“No. Unfortunately Karl’s contract negotiations fell through,” Jeremy explained, in a slightly sinister tone, “and it was felt that his death would serve the program better.”

“The television program?” Rachel checked.

“Yes. Or web serial, comic strip, whatever.”

Rachel nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. So does the show keep going? What happens to the doctor if Muscleman dies?”

“Oh, she has other patients to take care of,” he informed her. “Including a nice dog named Jeremy, who has the bad habit of eating balloons.”

That was the second time he’d mentioned a ‘nice dog’ named Jeremy, Rachel realized. She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. “ _You_ don’t eat balloons, do you?” she asked seriously.

“No.”

“Did you ever have a dog?”

“I raised a puppy once for mission research,” Jeremy revealed. “His name was Spaghetti-O’s. I was going to name him Orange,” he went on at her look, “but I was afraid he would get nervous when I said I liked eating oranges. But I don’t like eating Spaghetti-O’s, so they were unlikely to come up in conversation.”

“Of course,” Rachel agreed. “And what happened to Spaghetti-O’s? The dog?”

“Oh, he’s a guard dog here, I see him sometimes,” Jeremy replied. “Only they call him Ajax now.” He noted the relief on her face. “I didn’t have to kill him to prove my loyalty, that’s just a myth.”

“Oh good.” Rachel set his cartoon pages down. “Does drawing make you feel happy?” she asked delicately. “Or do you feel anxious?”

He gave this some thought. “My drawing hand is kind of tired,” he finally decided, flexing his fingers.

“Yeah, why don’t we take a break from drawing for a while,” Rachel suggested. “I’ll go get you those books Susan brought.”

She glanced through the books while out of Jeremy’s sight and decided they were probably okay—Julia Child’s cookbook, a linguistics textbook, and _Robert’s Rules of Order_ shouldn’t fuel his imagination too much.

Unless he hallucinated that he was being attacked by a glottal stop with a meat cleaver and a gavel.

“Dr. Ward?” He found her in the exam room before she could change her mind about the books. “Oh, there you are. I worried you’d gotten lost.”

“Here’s the books,” she said, handing them over with slight reluctance. “And it’s time to take your next pill.”

Jeremy made a whining noise, literally dragging his feet over to the exam table. “None of that,” Rachel chided. “There’s only two more doses after this one. So man up and swallow it.”

Jeremy took the pill, then she made him open his mouth so she could double-check. “Okay, why don’t you put the cushions back on the couch, and you can sit there and read.”

“Could I hang upside-down from the ceiling?”

“No.”

Jeremy read for a while, occasionally singing along with the music Rachel played. She would’ve turned it off and let him entertain himself just by singing, but he tended to lose focus when he tried to do a whole song, and then he got frustrated. Without making a big deal of it she collected his drawings and locked them away in a drawer.

Susan arrived promptly at four and stuck her head cautiously around the doorway. “Hi, Dr. Ward,” she greeted. “Did you know all your doors are open?”

“Yes, it’s to get rid of the smoky smell,” Rachel explained to her. Which reminded her—“Jeremy, could you unblock all the doors before you leave?”

He looked up from _Robert’s Rules of Order_ with a quizzical expression. “Sorry, what do you mean?”

“You know, how you made the doors stay open by pulling that lever in the frame?” Rachel elaborated, pointing. Jeremy followed her finger without comprehension. She sighed. “Something about bringing the coconuts down?”

This, he understood. “Oh, right.”

Once he’d shimmied up one doorway to release the lever, allowing the doors to close, Susan tried to copy him. Her climbing was nearly as adept as Jeremy’s, in Rachel’s view, and she was also easily able to turn the vents back down to normal; but she still seemed slightly frustrated and muttered something about needing to improve her skills. Rachel gathered she’d been studying video of the rescue already.

“Okay, so you’re going to be in the basement gym, right?” Rachel checked. “So Jeremy can’t go outside.”

“Yes,” Susan agreed. “Unless there’s a fire, and then I will hold onto him very tightly outside.”

“If there’s a fire, we have to come and get Dr. Ward first,” Jeremy corrected her.

“Don’t come to get me, I’ll meet you outside,” Rachel countered hurriedly. “Anyway, there’s not going to be another fire, so don’t worry about it.” She didn’t need them getting confused right now. “And we’ll meet around six, at Jeremy’s room?”

“So you can lock me in again,” Jeremy commented unhappily.

“Sorry, buddy,” Rachel told him regretfully, “but yeah.”

Susan responded to Jeremy’s distress easily. “Maybe _I_ could watch Jeremy after you leave, so he doesn’t have to go in his room so early,” she offered.

Rachel was prepared to consider this. “So then you would lock him in his room at the end of the day?” she checked. “Can you put a flag on him?”

“Agents can’t lock other agents in their rooms, _or_ put flags on them,” Jeremy declared.

“Well, I _could_ ,” Susan countered. Her tone indicated it would break a few rules to do so.

Rachel wasn’t sure if she should encourage that or not. “Well, let’s wait until six and see what’s going on,” she hedged. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Susan and Jeremy left, and Rachel started monitoring them on her computer. She kind of missed Jeremy when he was gone, even though she’d been with him for several hours. When he was sitting there reading or drawing, quiet except for the occasional bit of song, it was very pleasant. Karl joined them as she watched the monitor and then the three ended up in the basement gym, so Rachel tried to go back to work.

After a little while she glanced back at the monitor and did a double-take. Susan and Karl had succeeded in tying Jeremy up with jump ropes, presumably to simulate his helpless captivity, but they seemed to be having a disagreement about how best to rescue him. Jeremy seemed perfectly content standing around in his jump rope bonds, however, so Rachel decided to give them a little more time to work it out. Just a little, though.

An instant message popped up on her computer screen from Dr. Kedar, inviting her to come over to his office and talk more about Jeremy’s case. It was getting smoky again with all the doors shut, so Rachel accepted, making a mental note to call Karl in a few minutes and check on their progress.

Dr. Kedar’s office was a few doors down and had a similar layout to Rachel’s, though he seemed to prefer decorating it with a French pop-art theme focusing on bicycles. She’d gone with soothing trees and ducks herself. “Oh, hey, Rachel, come in, sit down,” Paul encouraged. “How’s Jeremy doing? He’s exercising with Susan now, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Susan and Karl,” she confirmed. “I’ve been really impressed with how well they’ve looked after him,” she went on. She was planning to repeat it to as many people as would listen. “You know, they can’t really _do_ much, but they keep him from getting hurt or wandering off.”

“Susan and Jeremy seem to be good friends, she mentions him sometimes,” Paul nodded. “I was always told the agents were supposed to stay away from each other, to not socialize, but—“

“Some of them have been in the program for ten years,” Rachel pointed out. “That’s a long time to pass someone in the halls and never speak to them.”

“I guess so. Although,” Paul chuckled, “it happened at my old job. I used to be at this teaching hospital in New Jersey, and there was a guy in the lab next door that I saw, literally, for years and we never spoke, just nodded. I don’t even know his name.”

“How long were you there?” Rachel asked him.

“About six years,” Paul told her. “I saw the guy gain weight, lose weight, grow a beard, shave it off. I don’t know, is that weird?”

Rachel shrugged. “We had pretty high turnover at the last place I worked,” she explained, “so there were a lot of people I didn’t know, but that was usually because they hadn’t been around long.”

“Where _did_ you work before?”

“It was this place in Florida that served a lot of prisoners,” she told him, and Paul seemed impressed.

“Hmm, yeah, you worked with the prisoners? Well, no wonder they thought you’d be good here,” he noted. Rachel tried to take that as a compliment to herself, and not an insult to the agents. “I worked with a lot of erratic homeless people and other shady characters, since we were a non-profit.”

“Well, I brought Jeremy’s latest data,” Rachel redirected, getting uncomfortable with the comparisons being made. She liked to think Dr. Kedar just meant they both had experience in treating difficult patients; but really, she felt he was probably equating the agents quite specifically with dangerous prisoners and mentally unbalanced people. And that just wasn’t going to be a conversation that led anywhere good.

“Before we go over that, I got you something,” Paul said, reaching into his desk drawer. He seemed slightly apprehensive, which made Rachel tense up. She _liked_ Paul, sure, but they definitely had their differences, and she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to go beyond being friendly colleagues. If he was about to give her a more-than-friendly present or something like that, things were going to get awkward _real_ quick.

He pulled out a small cardboard box, leftover from one of his medical supplies, and let her open it. Inside was a small needle attacked to a reservoir of liquid. So, her mind had been going in completely the wrong direction (she hoped).

“What’s this?” Rachel asked, taking the object from the box. The needle was securely sheathed in plastic.

“That’s the tranquilizer the guards use,” Paul told her. “It’s only a half dose, enough to make an agent woozy, and small enough that you could carry it around with you all the time, and administer it without… making a big deal of it.”

“You mean when their back is turned,” Rachel surmised.

Paul tried to stay very casual. “Look, I know how you feel about using sedatives on the agents,” he acknowledged, “but I also saw Jeremy freaking out in the cafeteria this afternoon. You know, he might do that again, only with no one else around, and without coming out of it so fast.”

Rachel was really not sure how she felt about this idea. The words ‘Thanks, that’s so clever’ were not on the tip of her tongue, however. Paul could easily read the conflict on her face. “I’m not saying you knock him out every time he twitches—“

“Although you would,” she surmised coolly. “If it was one of your patients. Like Susan.”

Paul sighed. “Rachel. They are dangerous. Their job, their life is to be dangerous. That’s what they do most of the time, and they only come back here briefly.”

“They aren’t—“

“And yes, okay, they try to control themselves here,” he pressed on. “Maybe they’re better at controlling themselves here than some of us give them credit for. But can you honestly say Jeremy is in complete control of himself right now?” He paused to give her an expectant look, and Rachel couldn’t make herself accept his challenge. Because she knew Jeremy _wasn’t_ in complete control right now.

“I mean, tell Jeremy you have it, if you want,” Paul suggested.

“I will,” she assured him sharply.

“Maybe it will make him feel better,” Paul went on. “I mean, don’t you think he worries about hurting you? Can you imagine how bad he’d feel, if he hurt you?”

The argument seemed a little self-serving, but Rachel supposed, grudgingly, that it made sense. She just found it very difficult to tell the agents that she trusted them to behave, when she was always prepared to _distrust_ them.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to be foolish, and pay a high price for that foolishness. Especially when extra precautions were perfectly reasonable with Jeremy right now. So she sighed and put the box next to her stack of folders, accepting it though with reluctance.

Paul seemed pleased. “Personally I think they should issue them to all the staff—“

“Can we talk about something else, please?” Rachel insisted abruptly. She had reached her limit on this subject.

“Right,” Paul agreed. “Uh, so, my idea for the Super Mice…”

**

Rachel was just starting to relax again as they debated about the experimental design when her phone rang. It was Karl, and it reminded her that she hadn’t checked on them in a while. “Hi, Karl. Is anything wrong?”

“ _Have you seen Jeremy lately?_ ” Karl responded, and Rachel’s guilt crystallized into alarm.

“No, I haven’t been in my office,” she conveyed quickly. “What happened?”

“ _He got away from us_.” His voice sounded funny and she realized this was Karl feeling sheepish. “ _Susan and I were planning and when we looked up he was gone_.”

“Oh G-d,” Rachel replied, trying to think. “Okay, where’s the nearest outdoor exit with no guards? Watch it, see if anyone’s seen him. Get the other agents watching the doors. Have Susan check the vents. I’ll call the monitors and—“

“Dr. Ward?” called Jeremy, reasonably cheerful, from the outer office. She hurried out to see him, still securely tied in his jump ropes.

“Never mind, he’s in Dr. Kedar’s office with me,” Rachel reported, vastly relieved. “And, by the way, he escaped from both of you still tied up?”

“ _We need more practice_ ,” Karl acknowledged.

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed, and hung up. She gave Jeremy a look. “Why did you leave Karl and Susan?” she demanded. “And, how did you get here like that?”

Jeremy hopped a few inches, his feet securely bound at the ankles. “It’s good exercise,” he claimed. “And, I got bored with what they were doing. They were just talking.”

“How’d you get through the security checkpoints?” Dr. Kedar wanted to know.

Jeremy turned his gaze on the man deliberately, unfriendly and assessing. He did not like Dr. Kedar. “With my finger,” he replied, which seemed a bit rude until Rachel realized he meant he’d swiped his fingerprint at the checkpoints per usual.

“But Jeremy, what did you _tell_ them?” she pressed, finally starting to fuss with the knots. “You just hopped by, tied up with jump ropes, and no one said anything?” They needed more inquisitive security around here.

“Well, they might’ve asked,” Jeremy conceded, “but I don’t remember what I said. I can get out of the ropes myself, Dr. Ward.”

“Oh really.” She was skeptical but stepped back and let him try. “Why didn’t you before, then?”

Jeremy shrugged. Then he started to squirm and contort, carefully wriggling free of the ropes. It was not pleasant to watch. “Don’t worry, I’m going to fall over,” he warned, as he did so. Then he writhed around on the floor, the ropes amazingly loosening around him.

“Ever wish you could tell people what you do at work?” Rachel asked Paul dryly.

“Where would I even begin,” he responded.

Jeremy shook a few more times and finally got the ropes free from his hands, making quick work of the rest. When the last rope fell away he didn’t get up, however, but turned to face the others on all fours, pulled his lips back, and snarled.

“Uh-oh,” said Paul, tensing up.

“It’s okay,” Rachel claimed. “He just thinks he’s some kind of animal. Usually he’s friendly.”

“To _you_ , maybe,” Paul muttered, as Jeremy stalked closer, eyes darting back and forth between them.

“Don’t run,” Rachel warned him. “Jeremy, come here. Come here, good boy.” She held out her hand and he trotted over, as well as a person could trot on hands and knees. He sniffed her hand, nuzzled it with his face, then licked it. Rachel grimaced. “Oh how nice.” She wiped her hand off in Jeremy’s hair, under the guise of petting him. “Good boy. Are you a dog of some kind?”

“Maybe he’s a wolf,” Paul suggested. Jeremy dodged at him, growling, and Rachel grabbed the collar of his shirt. He whined in protest.

“Come on, you big puppy dog,” she muttered, pulling on his shoulders. “Come over here.” Jeremy kept circling her and finally she tripped over him, though he sprang up in a very undoglike fashion to catch her. Then they were both on the floor, and Jeremy tried to curl up in her lap.

“I guess he’s a Yorkie or something,” Paul deadpanned, and Rachel glared at him.

The doors to the outer office parted, admitting Karl and Susan. “I told you he’d get free,” Karl said, noting the pile of jump ropes.

“I thought I had them really tight this time,” Susan responded in disappointment.

Jeremy was still squirming around on Rachel’s lap and she was trying to still him, as long as he didn’t land on a sensitive bit. Someone his size was not really meant to be in her lap, though. Suddenly his movements changed and he knocked her back on the floor, straddling her and pinning her hands above her head.

“Hey, get off her!” Paul ordered sharply.

Jeremy ignored him. “Are we wrestling?” he asked Rachel curiously. “That’s not a good idea.”

“No,” she snapped. “Get up.” He did so immediately and pulled her to her feet. Then he looked around, trying to remember where he was and why.

“Are we done exercising?” he asked. “I’m ready to stop.”

“We need more rescuing practice,” Susan said, but in a tone that accepted they wouldn’t get any more today.

“Your plan was stupid,” Karl rumbled at her.

“There’s no need to be rude, Karl,” Rachel reprimanded him. “Okay, Jeremy, why don’t we go back to my office and—“ She took his arm but he was suddenly immobile, with a faraway look in his eye. “Jeremy?”

“It’s very cold, Dr. Ward,” he observed slowly, looking around but seeing something different than she did.

Rachel put her hand on his forehead. “Do you feel cold? It’s fine in here.”

Carefully he pulled her into his arms. “I’ve set the distress beacon, but the average response time is three point seven days,” he went on.

“Okay,” Rachel agreed helplessly.

“I could get to the rendezvous point by myself, but I don’t think you would be able to keep pace,” he told her seriously.

“Probably not,” Racehl said. “Where do you think we are?”

“Siberia.”

“Did he have a mission in Siberia?” she asked the other agents, who just shrugged.

“I don’t think you would survive if I left you here by yourself,” Jeremy continued, sounding increasingly troubled. “So I’m not going to leave you. But our chances of survival are low. I’m sorry, Dr. Ward, I don’t think I can get you out of this.”

“Oh, Jeremy, it’s okay, honey,” she said, rubbing the back of his head. He sounded like he was tearing up. “You’re just imagining this, we’re actually fine. You’re just hallucinating.”

He sniffled and pulled her even closer; she wasn’t sure if he didn’t believe her, or if her words were merely ignored because they didn’t fit the world of his delusion. “Sit down,” he instructed, so they sat on the floor and he held her tightly. “I’ll try to keep you warm for as long as I can.”

He was going to have _her_ crying next. “Jeremy, it’s okay, we’re not going to freeze,” she tried to tell him. “It’s just—you’re having a dream, sweetie. Try to wake up.” There was no response. “Jeremy?” She tried to turn around to look at him.

“His eyes are closed,” Dr. Kedar said, kneeling down beside them. He put two fingers to Jeremy’s neck. “His pulse is… slow. But steady.”

“Oh G-d.” Rachel tried to extricate herself from Jeremy’s arms, which had gone stiff. “I need a heart monitor, stat. And a temp monitor, I think his temperature’s dropping. Help me,” she ordered Susan and Karl, who were just standing there, watching.

Susan took Jeremy’s arms and carefully pried them away from Rachel, and Karl helped her stand. “Carry him into the exam room,” Dr. Kedar told them.

“Hey, be careful of his arm,” Rachel warned Karl when he grabbed Jeremy’s snakebite injury. Jeremy did not respond if he felt any pain, however.

The two agents dropped Jeremy on the exam table. “Careful!” Rachel repeated again in exasperation. “You guys _do_ need rescue practice. Pretend he’s an asset you have to retrieve. Unharmed.”

This did not really have an effect on them. “He’s here,” Karl pointed out. “We retrieved him.”

“Should we make him straighten out?” Susan asked.

“G-d, no, you’ll break his legs,” Dr. Kedar warned. “Here, stick these monitor patches on him.”

“He’s just hibernating,” Karl intoned, and Rachel turned to stare at him.

“What? What do you know about this, Karl?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “It’s a survival technique. Lower heart rate, lower metabolism and body temperature.”

“Like a bear,” Susan added helpfully. “In training we all had to do it for three days, in a walk-in freezer.”

“Well how do you snap out of it?” Rachel asked them impatiently.

“Change the environment,” Karl revealed nonchalantly. “They warmed the freezer up.”

“Blankets,” Rachel decided, which would be faster than trying to turn up the thermostat. Paul was already grabbing an armload of blankets and towels, but she had to prompt Karl and Susan into action. “Find anything that can be used as a blanket and put it on him! Not his face, though.” Of course their ideas were slightly more resourceful, like a newspaper from the doctor’s desk and one of the pop-art bicycle paintings. Kindly Paul did not say anything about that to them.

After a few minutes Jeremy’s heart rate and body temperature began to pick up and he came to groggily, no doubt rather confused about why he had towels, newspapers, and paintings piled on top of him. “Dr. Ward?” he mumbled.

She took his hand. “Are you okay, Jeremy? You thought we were in Siberia and you started hibernating.”

“Oh.” This seemed to frustrate him. “Maybe I should go back to my room now.”

“Let’s take these things off before he overheats,” Dr. Kedar directed Karl and Susan. “Could you hang that back up where you found it? Thanks.”

“You could stay out later, and _I_ could put you back in your room,” Susan reminded Jeremy. Karl snorted as though this was a ridiculous idea.

“I don’t know what I would do,” Jeremy countered wearily. It could have meant that he didn’t know what he would do to keep occupied, or that he didn’t know what hallucination he might fall into next. Or both.

“Well, I could get the books Susan brought you,” Rachel proposed, “and pick up some dinner for you, and we could hang out in your room until it’s time for me to leave.” Jeremy sighed, not overdramatic, just completely sick of this altered state of mind that affected both his routine and that of everyone around him.

“Heart rate and temp are stabilizing,” Paul reported. “I guess we can take the patches off now.” Susan had apparently applied a great number of them to Jeremy, which now had to be found and removed.

“Only a few more days, buddy,” Rachel tried to tell him, rubbing his arm. She helped him sit up. “Okay, Susan and Karl, would you mind taking Jeremy to his room? I’ll get the books and some dinner and join him.”

“Let’s carry him like he’s unconscious and we’ve rescued him,” Susan proposed to Karl.

“We could make him unconscious for real,” Karl countered. “Again.”

“Be nice,” Rachel admonished, “and don’t scare Jeremy, or you won’t be allowed to see him.”

The warning had the desired effect on Susan, who carefully looped her arm through Jeremy’s. “Okay, we’ll just walk, I guess,” she conceded. “Come on, Jeremy.” He did as he was directed, still slightly stiff from his brief hibernation. Karl followed at a distance.

Once the three agents were out of the office Rachel sighed and slumped back on the exam table. “You’ve really got a handle on them,” Paul told her, meaning it as a compliment. “They really listen to you. It’s impressive.”

Rachel was not really feeling that impressive herself. “I _know_ he needs to take this medicine to make sure the venom is out of his system,” she acknowledged.

“Yes,” Paul affirmed.

“But he’s just so miserable, I feel horrible about it,” she confessed, which wasn’t much of a secret. “I mean, it’s all so _vivid_ to him—G-d, a minute ago he _really_ thought we were going to die in Siberia.”

Paul nodded. “He really did. He thought _you_ were going to die, because he’d failed to save you.” She didn’t need the reminder. “Which is why I think you need to take that box with you,” he added, meaning the half-dose tranquilizer. She really didn’t want to be reminded about that, either. “I honestly can’t imagine what he would do if he realized he’d hurt you. You know it would be really bad. He’s so attached to you.”

Something about the way he said that made her glance at him. “Do you think it’s bad, that he’s so attached?” she dared to ask. His shrug didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. “None of your agents are like that about you?”

“Uh, no,” he snorted. He seemed a tiny bit regretful about this. “You know Susan is attached to one of the librarians, right? An older lady, so I don’t know _what_ that’s about—“

“She reminds Susan of her grandmother, who raised her,” Rachel supplied.

Paul blinked at her. “How would Susan remember being raised by her grandmother? I thought everything from before the program was wiped out.”

Rachel yawned and shook her head. “Oh, G-d, I don’t know how I know that,” she sighed. “Maybe I just made that up. I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”

“This whole thing’s been really tough on you, too,” Paul pointed out. “Maybe you shouldn’t come in tomorrow.”

Rachel gave him a sharp look. “What?”

“Jeremy can stay in his room for a day,” he insisted. “You can call in for updates every couple of hours. But take a break.”

Rachel shook her head, as he probably knew she would. “It’s only a couple more days. Three, I guess,” she reasoned. “He seems calmer when I’m around.” She frowned. “Or do you think I’m just imagining that?”

“If I could say yes to that convincingly, and get you to stay home tomorrow, I would,” Paul admitted dryly, putting the last of the blankets and towels away. “But I do honestly think he’d survive a day. Anyway,” he went on, “Peggy Baumgartner, the librarian, _she_ comes to me to tell me things about Susan that Susan won’t tell me herself—like if she’s not feeling well or something. I can’t get anything out of Susan, I even tried the pain scale like you suggested. She just hasn’t taken to me. I’m shocked she put the monitors on Jeremy when I told her to.”

“I don’t really have a secret,” Rachel assured him, in case he thought she was holding something back. “Susan’s very nice, maybe you guys just got off on the wrong foot.” What with him always drugging her and so forth. He seemed to have eased up on that lately, though. “Maybe just try talking to her. You know, they don’t always respond right away, but they think about it later.”

“Yeah,” Paul shrugged, not entirely convinced. “Anyway, I think this also shows the importance of testing some compounds with the Super Mice. We have to find out which drug is messing up the agents, before the side effects end up doing serious damage. I mean, a snakebite isn’t exactly rare for them.”

“No, I agree with you,” Rachel assured him. “I’ll go in on the proposal, if you want. It just doesn’t seem likely to be approved, I’ve never heard of anyone actually getting to work with the Super Mice except the research team.”

“They’re concocting new superpowers for the agents with them,” Paul predicted, only slightly tongue-in-cheek. That was always the rumor going around. “Next thing you know they’ll be able to fly.”

“Well Jeremy _already_ seems to think he can fly, even when he _isn’t_ sick,” Rachel pointed out dryly. She straightened up with a sigh. “Well, I better get going, they’re probably waiting for me.”

She went back into Paul’s office to pick up the folders she’d brought, hesitating over the box with the tranquilizer in it. After a moment she pocketed it, figuring if she didn’t he would just bug her about it later. “Thanks for your help with Jeremy today,” she added to Paul, realizing she hadn’t really told him that yet. “They didn’t hurt your poster thing, did they?”

“Nah,” he assured her. “I just got it at Wal-Mart anyway. Hey, think about what I said, about tomorrow, okay?” he pressed as she headed for the door. “I bet if you talked to Jeremy about it he would agree with me.”

“Goodnight,” Rachel said, by way of reply.

She went back to her office and picked up the innocuous books Susan had brought from the library. Then she tried to decide what her plan was—did she cart all her stuff down to the cafeteria and Jeremy’s room and leave from there, or carry less now but have to come back up to her office before she went home? She decided on the latter, while recognizing that she might regret her choice later.

In the cafeteria she filled a tray, at least as much as she could with the books piled on it, too, and proceeded down to the resident zone while envisioning dumping everything on the floor by accident while trying to swipe her ID. Maybe she should’ve asked about a cart or something. It definitely would’ve been useful as she stood outside Jeremy’s quarters, tapping the tray on the door. It didn’t look like it was locked, so someone inside it should be able to open the door for her.

Rachel was just about to carefully balance the tray on one arm and open the door herself when suddenly the panel slid aside and Karl caught the wobbling tray for her. “Thanks,” she said, deciding not to chide him for taking so long to answer the door. As she walked in she saw Susan and Jeremy enthusiastically jumping on the bed, which she figured would distract anyone.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to do this,” Susan worried as she bounced across the mattress.

“Why not?” Jeremy asked sensibly, executing a flip from one end of the bed to the other.

Rachel really didn’t want to play the mean mom and tell them to stop—she didn’t really care if they somehow broke the furniture, after all (though you would think the furniture made for the agents would be pretty sturdy). But if one of them jumped too high and hit their head on the unyielding ceiling, or bounced right off the bed and broke an arm, while Rachel had been standing right there doing nothing—She turned to Karl to get his take on it.

“You’re not joining them, Karl?” she questioned.

“I have bad knees,” he replied unexpectedly, looking slightly envious of the other two.

Rachel blinked at him. “Relatively speaking, I guess,” she decided. She would not by any means have called any of his joints bad—though he did go to physical therapy a lot. But she’d thought that had more to do with Jayla Horner than his knees.

Jeremy grabbed Susan’s arm and stopped her bouncing. “Oh wait, we shouldn’t mess up the bed,” he informed her, “because Dr. Ward made it this morning.”

They both looked down at the twisted blankets and tumbled pillows with some consternation, and _now_ Karl put on his usual contemptuous look. “You should’ve thought of that before you started,” he rumbled.

“Well, Jeremy’s the one who has to sleep in it,” Rachel shrugged. At least they’d taken their shoes off first. “Karl, Susan, thanks again for helping Jeremy today,” she went on, as Susan climbed off the bed. “Especially during the fire.”

“Can we take Jeremy to exercise tomorrow?” Susan asked, picking up her shoes.

“Sure, if he feels like it,” Rachel allowed. She paused to see if Jeremy had any input, but he merely watched them speculatively from atop the bed. “And if it doesn’t get in the way of other things you need to do.” She knew she’d recently certified Karl as mission-ready, and usually it didn’t take long for the agents to get a new assignment once that happened.

Karl and Susan left without reassuring her on this point and she tried not to think about it further. No use worrying about what tomorrow would bring just yet, she had all night for that.

As she turned away to get the tray of food Karl had set down there was a rapid movement in the corner of her eye and she looked back quickly. Jeremy froze on the bed in a peculiar, awkward position, like he was in the middle of a game of Twister. Shaking her head she turned away again, the mental image of agents playing Twister refusing to leave her brain.

“Are you hungry for dinner now?” she asked Jeremy. “I brought you a—“ Again he was motionless when she looked at him, though in a different strange position. She let him wobble there for a moment. “Do you think you can only move when I’m not looking?” she asked him.

He looked like he wanted to deny it. “Maybe,” he hedged secretively.

“And what are you doing over there, when I’m not looking?”

“Nothing,” he claimed.

Rachel sighed and turned her back, which unleashed a flurry of motion and noise behind her. “So I brought you some dinner and your books,” she reiterated, feeling silly just standing there with her back to him. “And tomorrow morning I’ll come and get you a little after eight. It would be nice if you were up and showered by then,” she added pointedly. Finally she couldn’t stand it and turned to see Jeremy lounging on the bed, which had been hastily straightened up.

“Oh, you made the bed,” she praised. “How nice. Do you want to eat now?”

“Can we sit on the bed and eat?” he requested, so she brought the tray of food over. “You can sit by me, Dr. Ward,” he offered, and she sat down beside him as indicated.

“Are we on a boat again?” she asked as he picked up the turkey sandwich she’d brought.

“No, we’re on a school bus,” he corrected nonchalantly, eating his dinner.

Well, that was new. “So we’re going to school?” Rachel surmised. Then she frowned suspiciously. “This isn’t related to Muscleman, is it?” It wasn’t the first time a bus had been mentioned today.

But Jeremy shook his head. “No, we’re going on a trip,” he informed her.

“A school trip? To where?”

“To see the President.”

“Well, it’s no yellow brick road to the Wizard,” Rachel commented dryly, “but I guess it will do. What grade are we in?”

“Seniors in high school.”

“Oh.” Rachel was disappointed. “Well, I was hoping it was more like elementary school,” she admitted. “I didn’t really like high school that much.”

“Me neither,” Jeremy agreed. She was about to ask if he actually _remembered_ being in high school, or thought he did, but he continued blithely, “We may require your experience at grand theft auto to appropriate the bus soon.”

“I do _not_ —“ Rachel started to sputter, then caught his expression and gave him a slight shove. “It is not nice to use your illness as an excuse to tease me,” she warned. Though she had to admit she was pleased he was lucid enough to connect her disaffected teenage years (minor vehicular adventures included) with his current delusion.

Jeremy almost smiled at her, a refreshingly normal expression for him. Unfortunately after a moment it reminded her of something unpleasant she wanted to talk to him about, while he could still understand. He picked up on her body language right away. “What’s wrong, Dr. Ward?” he wanted to know. “I don’t think we’re on the school bus anymore,” he added encouragingly.

Rachel gave him a wan smile. “Well, I need to tell you something,” she began ominously, moving around to face him. “Are you still with me?” He nodded attentively and Rachel told herself that drawing it out was only making him more anxious. “Dr. Kedar gave me this little tranquilizer dart thing,” she explained in a rush, “which has just a half-dose in it, enough to calm you down if you get agitated. I can carry it around with me, until you’re better. I just wanted you to know,” she ended lamely.

She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d expected from him. But she saw him tense up, become extremely uncomfortable, and she almost wished she’d just left the thing in her office and never mentioned it. He set his sandwich down and avoided eye contact as he ate a few grapes, clearing his throat and absently rubbing the back of his neck.

“Jeremy—“ Rachel tried, reaching for him, but he expertly shied away.

“Um, that’s good,” he told her in a slightly strangled tone. “That’s a really good idea. Staff should probably always carry those.”

“No, come on, it’s okay,” she insisted, trying to take his hand. He slipped from her grasp like she’d burned him and left the bed completely. “Jeremy, you’ve been really careful so far, you’ve done really well,” she told him.

He took the tray away, trying to change the subject. “I’m not very hungry right now, I think I’ll put the rest of this in the fridge for later,” he remarked, dodging as she held out her hand for him.

“Dr. Kedar was just worried about what happened after the fire,” Rachel pressed, feeling like she couldn’t give up now that she’d started. “Do you remember? In the cafeteria, when you thought you couldn’t smell anything, and you got upset?” He was crouching down in front of the open mini-fridge, his back to her. “Jeremy?”

“I remember,” he assured her guiltily. “It’s a good idea,” he added more confidently, standing and turning back around. His posture radiated inapproachability. “In case I don’t know what’s going on and can’t control myself.”

“Jeremy, would you come here, please?” Rachel requested. It was silly to feel guilty when the precautions she was taking were completely reasonable—but she felt guilty anyway.

“Maybe you should go,” he suggested, not moving any closer. He crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Rachel thought suddenly of Dr. Kedar’s insistence that she take tomorrow off and dropped her gaze. Jeremy picked up on it immediately. “Or maybe you should stay home, Dr. Ward,” he added. “I’ll stay in my room.”

Obviously there was no guarantee of that, but that wasn’t the point. “I don’t think you’ll be very happy in your room all day,” she countered.

“Well I won’t be very happy if I’m out and I hurt—“ Jeremy cut himself off, finding his tone too sharp, and glanced around the room instead of continuing. He held himself very tightly, pressed against the wall like any movement might unleash chaos.

Rachel turned around on the bed to face him. “Jeremy, come here,” she ordered firmly. Okay, maybe she was taking advantage of her authority a little bit here, since agents were supposed to follow staff directions. But she wasn’t going to leave for the night with him feeling lonely and miserable. In her mind at least she’d already done that once and neither of them deserved it.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy pointed out unnecessarily.

“You won’t,” Rachel stated, trying to project the confidence he lacked. “Come over here.”

With great reluctance he dragged himself to the edge of the bed. This was not close enough for Rachel, however, and she patted the mattress beside her. “Come on,” she cajoled in a lighter tone. “Turn into a friendly tiger or a dog or something.”

“I can’t really control that,” Jeremy grumbled, but he climbed onto the bed and put his head down in her lap. She rubbed his chest soothingly. “I’m sorry if I scared you before,” he told her. “When I smelled the smoke. I wanted to be careful but we had to leave the building.”

“I understand,” Rachel assured him, pleased he was finally relaxing a little. “But if it happens again we’re probably going to have the same conversation,” she warned.

“Because you don’t know if what I’m sensing is real,” Jeremy nodded. “I know. But it’s just like when the baby elephant was sick, and no one believed me.”

Rachel frowned at the sudden change in subject. “What?”

“And they didn’t take care of it and the baby elephant died,” Jeremy went on. “And Sunflower was so sad. I used to sit and talk to her sometimes. She wouldn’t do any tricks after that, so they sold her.”

“Jeremy, what are you talking about?” Rachel pressed. “When did this happen? Was it here?” She couldn’t quite picture elephants at the Center.

He blinked a few times and she suspected her questions were not going to be answered. “Sorry, Dr. Ward. What were you saying?” he asked.

She tried anyway. “You were talking about elephants,” she tried to explain. “An elephant named Sunflower, and a baby elephant who died.”

Jeremy rolled onto his back and gave her a look which suggested _she_ might be the crazy one. “That’s very sad, Dr. Ward,” he observed seriously.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about,” Rachel sighed, patting his chest.

“No.”

“Never worked with elephants before?”

“I _ate_ elephant once,” Jeremy mused. “To survive. I didn’t kill it, it was already dead.”

“Never mind,” Rachel decided. Maybe he saw some of these things in movies and was just inserting himself into the story, or just completely made them up—subconsciously, anyway.

“You should use the tranquilizer dart,” Jeremy said after a moment, meeting her gaze. “If you have to. Don’t feel bad about it.”

“Well, I _will_ feel bad, probably,” Rachel predicted. He laced his hand through hers on his chest. “I mean, the drug interaction alone—“

“Dr. Ward, I’ve had so many drugs in my system, and none has killed me yet,” Jeremy pointed out frankly, with the tiniest tinge of exasperation at her for continually mentioning this particular obstacle. “Don’t let that stop you.”

“Well _someone_ has to think about the dangers of your drug use,” Rachel shot back dryly. She took his point, though. She glanced regretfully at the clock. “Well, tiger, I should get going. Finish your dinner, okay? Don’t sit around being hungry.”

Jeremy made no promises about this, but he did roll out of Rachel’s lap easily enough, watching her pensively from the bed as she stood. “What should I do about the diamonds, then?” he asked her.

“I dunno, what do you _want_ to do about them?” Rachel shrugged, humoring him.

“Eddie said he knew a fence who would buy them, but I’m sure they’re too big for him,” Jeremy went on matter-of-factly. “We’ll probably only get one percent of their value, if that.”

“Please don’t be telling me anything classified about a mission,” Rachel requested suspiciously.

“The diamonds weren’t the mission,” Jeremy claimed. “Just an accident. But it would be odd to give up on them so easily, since I shot a cop for them.”

Rachel put her hands on her hips and gave him a stern look. “You better be recounting the plot of some heist movie, buster,” she warned. “Because you _shouldn’t_ be going around shooting police officers.”

“I think he wasn’t a very nice person,” Jeremy evaded, which did not give Rachel confidence.

Suddenly she was no longer reluctant to leave. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault, but she’d been putting up with his altered realities for almost ten hours now, and it was time to go home and take a break before she came back tomorrow and did it again.

“Well, whatever,” Rachel told him. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe _you_ should take the diamonds,” Jeremy suggested eagerly.

“Sure, my sister can sell them to her jewelry-making friends,” Rachel deadpanned. She was supposed to have dinner with Eliza tonight anyway. Er, but, she would _not_ be telling her anything about her day, because that was not allowed. Nor was fencing imaginary stolen diamonds. “Hand them over.”

Jeremy nodded and reached under the bed, pulling out… a sock, dusty and clearly long-forgotten. Well, not _completely_ forgotten, apparently. “Here. Careful, it’s heavy.”

“Oh thanks,” Rachel commented, taking the dirty sock. “Okay, please stay in your room for the night, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” Jeremy agreed, as though it was so simple. “Goodnight, Dr. Ward.”

Rachel left before she could be drawn back in to another fantasy and locked the door, making sure to set it so other agents couldn’t let him out. Though clearly the agents spent a lot of their downtime figuring out how to bypass all these security measures—maybe they really _were_ bored. Then Rachel put a flag on Jeremy, so if he _did_ break out, he could get through the checkpoints but would be constantly watched (as if he wouldn’t be anyway).

Then she tried to figure out what to do with the sock. There were no garbage cans in the hall; agents were disciplined enough to carry trash to the proper receptacle, even if it was some distance. Dropping it on the floor for the maintenance crew to sweep up later seemed kind of rude, so Rachel just sighed and carried it back up to her office, finally tossing it into the laundry bin with the exam gowns and lab coats. Then she gathered up her things, shut down her office, and left wearily, trying not to bring her work home with her.


	4. Day Four

_Day Four—Sunday_

Bright and early Sunday morning Rachel was back at work, determined to have a productive and healthy day. Assuming there were no more fire alarms, of course—if so, all bets were off. She hit the cafeteria for a coffee and an orange to tempt Jeremy with, then descended to the resident zone. The records showed Jeremy had stayed in his room all night long with no attempted break-outs, so that was a good sign.

Rachel unlocked the door, then rang the doorbell to alert him. No need to barge in, after all. But after several moments of waiting she opened the door anyway, hoping perhaps he was just busy getting ready. Unfortunately the shower was _not_ running—and there was a Jeremy-shaped lump tightly bundled on the bed.

With a loud sigh Rachel set her coffee and the orange out of harm’s way. “Jeremy, it’s time to get up,” she announced sternly. There was no response. “Jeremy, we’re not going to have a repeat of yesterday,” she warned. Again, nothing. But it was an odd sort of nothing, _really_ nothing, no movement at all from the lump. Not even breathing.

Rachel started to get worried. “Jeremy?” Taking a chance she pulled away the blankets at the foot of the bed and found… a pillow. She tugged the rest of the blankets aside, revealing that the lump consisted only of pillows and rolled-up towels, with a sort of twisted rope made from a sheet at the head.

So if Jeremy wasn’t under the blankets—

Rachel turned and immediately jerked backwards, finding Jeremy standing right behind her with a look of mild pique on his face. “You ruined my trap,” he accused.

“What? What are you doing?” Rachel demanded, certain that this deception was _not_ a good start to the day.

“Why did you start at the foot?” Jeremy wanted to know. His tone was a bit sharp. “You were supposed to start at the head.”

“Why are you talking about a trap?” Rachel pressed. She glanced back at his pillow construction. “What’s that rope thing?”

“Well if you’d started at the head you would know,” Jeremy replied, managing to sound snotty and sinister at the same time. “But you started at the foot and you knocked it off-balance so now it’s ruined.”

“You built a _trap_ to catch me when I woke you up this morning?” Rachel surmised, thoroughly unimpressed. “That’s really not cool, Jeremy. And hey, security monitors, thanks for the warning,” she added sarcastically, looking at one of the cameras.

“You wouldn’t have been _hurt_ ,” Jeremy insisted, as though she was being unreasonable. He backed off finally, wandering over to the table. “And anyway, it wasn’t for you specifically, it might have been someone else who was after the diskette.” Wrinkling his nose at the orange, Jeremy picked up the coffee instead.

“I am not after the diskette and neither is anyone else, because it is not 1995,” Rachel told him peevishly. “And that is _my_ coffee—and you are _not_ supposed to have caffeine!” she snapped as he slurped it.

Rachel stomped over and snatched the cup away from him without thinking. Jeremy let it go but growled at her. “Stop it,” Rachel ordered him but he advanced on her, forcing her to back up until she ran into the wall. “Stop. It,” she repeated, too angry to be afraid.

“Maybe you should tranq me,” he said. It was almost a taunt.

“Fine, take the coffee,” Rachel said sharply, shoving it into his hand and then pushing him aside. The move took him by surprise and she strode back towards the door. “Enjoy it. Ration it, because this door’s not opening again until it’s time for your pill—“

“Dr. Ward, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy said in a placating tone. His hand brushed hers, not grabbing, just letting her know he was there. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ward. Please don’t go.”

Taking a deep breath Rachel stopped and turned, giving him a look that said that apology was only the tip of the iceberg of his reparations. Jeremy held out the coffee, his expression remorseful, and slowly Rachel took the beverage.

“It wasn’t a _real_ trap, see?” he claimed, hurrying over to the bed. He picked up the twisted sheet, the end of which snaked off the mattress and under the bed. “It’s not attached to anything. I guess maybe I _thought_ it was, or I thought _other_ people would think it was…” He trailed off in confusion.

Rachel sighed and sipped her coffee for fortitude. “It’s not a very good start to the day,” she told him.

“I know.”

“Building traps and growling at me.”

“I’m sorry I growled at you,” Jeremy said regretfully. “I was just frustrated. But I knew I shouldn’t have.”

“I want today to be a _good_ day,” she shared, the sentiment sounding a little more militant than she’d originally envisioned it.

“I think there’s nowhere to go but up,” Jeremy agreed hopefully.

Rachel conceded that. “Okay. Have you taken your shower already?”

He nodded eagerly. “Yes, Dr. Ward.”

She smiled, which was only a little bit forced. “Okay, that’s good. Do you want to go upstairs for breakfast?” He wanted to do whatever _Rachel_ wanted him to do, was the impression she got, but she would take what she could get. “Grab your orange and we’ll go.”

Obediently Jeremy picked up the orange and followed Rachel out the door. “You smell nice today, Dr. Ward,” he told her, seemingly eager to make up for his earlier behavior.

“Thanks,” Rachel replied. “How was your night? Did you read more?”

“Yes, I finished all three books,” Jeremy assured her, which—if true—was impressive. “I would like to try cooking sometime, I think it would be a useful skill to have.”

“That sounds like a very productive activity,” Rachel encouraged. “Do they have a kitchen where the agents could practice? Or would you just use the cafeteria?”

“I don’t know,” Jeremy answered distractedly, turning the orange over and over in his hands.

“What’s wrong, tiger?” Rachel prompted after a moment.

“Well, I can’t figure out how to open this,” he admitted, totally baffled as he examined the orange. He pressed on the bulging navel as though it was a button, then tried pressing it simultaneously with the opposite end. “Maybe there’s a hidden panel somewhere—“

Rachel had a vision of the orange being crushed to a messy pulp under Jeremy’s efforts. “Let me see it,” she told him, and he handed it over, dutifully holding her coffee in return. Rachel pierced the orange skin with her fingernail and peeled off a patch of it. “There you go,” she told Jeremy, giving it back to him. “That should get you started.”

He stared between her and the orange with awe. “That was so clever, Dr. Ward,” he complimented her sincerely. “Did you receive training on that in medical school?” He continued the peeling, though with a far clumsier technique.

“You know, I just figured it out on my own,” Rachel revealed, trying not to sound too teasing. “Trial and error.” They stepped into the elevator. “I read a novel once in college called _Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit_ ,” she remembered idly. “It was about this girl who was raised by a very religious, conservative mother, but then she realized she was a lesbian, leading to—“ She paused when she saw Jeremy gazing fixedly at one corner of the elevator compartment. “Buddy?”

“Dr. Ward, is there anyone else in this elevator, besides the two of us?” Jeremy asked urgently, his voice and posture tightly controlled.

Rachel resisted the urge to look around. “No, there’s only you and me,” she assured him, slipping her arm through his. The muscles were rock-hard with tension and she massaged his arm with her free hand. “There’s no one else here but you and me. Just relax. I’m glad you asked, instead of doing something sudden.”

“I have to be careful,” Jeremy recited. His eyes hadn’t moved from the site of his apparition, though.

“What do you think you see?” Rachel asked curiously.

“A man, 60ish, balding, bushy grey hair, about five-foot-seven with a stoop,” Jeremy described immediately. “He’s wearing a brown suit, wrinkled, and carrying a brown paper bag with the top rolled up.”

Benign though it was, the level of detail was a little creepy, as was Jeremy’s absolute certainty about it. “Who do you think he is?” Rachel asked, trying not to whisper. It was like being in the presence of a ghost that only Jeremy could see, though.

“I don’t know his name,” Jeremy admitted, “but I’ve seen him before. We take the same train to work every day.”

“Are we on the train now?” Rachel wanted to know.

At that moment the elevator dinged and the doors opened to their floor. “We’re on the elevator, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy informed her politely, no longer transfixed by the phantom commuter. “Would you like to get off?”

He had a way of saying these things like it was _Rachel_ who wasn’t making sense. She tried to shake off his visions as easily as he did. “Yes, let’s get off,” she agreed. “How’s your orange?”

Jeremy popped another wedge into his mouth and offered one to her. “It’s very good. I’m impressed you caught it and skinned it yourself. I wouldn’t have thought that was an interest of yours.”

“Hey, my dad didn’t raise no wimps,” Rachel assured him, taking the orange wedge. “When I was a kid we used to go on Orange Hunts in the woods. Come back with an orange or don’t come back at all, my dad would say.”

“That seems a rather harsh policy,” Jeremy worried as they stepped into the cafeteria line.

“Eh, only lost a couple of siblings that way,” Rachel dismissed. “Survival of the fittest. What are you going to have for breakfast?”

Jeremy perused the available selections. “I would like some bacon,” he decided, picking up a bowl of scrambled eggs, “and some more fruit”—a small plate of bacon—“and some eggs.” For the last he took a bowl of fruit cocktail.

Rachel blinked at him. “How about some carbs?” He successfully selected a bagel, though he picked it up only by inserting his finger through the hole in a slightly obscene manner. Fortunately there were few people in the cafeteria to witness this.

Jeremy pushed his tray down the counter, animating it with car noises, and Rachel put her hand over her mouth so he wouldn’t see her grin. They reached the register and the woman behind it smiled and greeted Jeremy in Spanish. He replied in kind, but the woman’s eyebrows shot up at his words.

Rachel did not speak Spanish. She wasn’t sure if that was good or not at this point. “Jeremy’s been sick lately,” she hastened to explain. “He doesn’t really know what he’s saying.” The woman nodded dubiously and totaled up the food items. Jeremy spoke again as he swiped his thumb across the scanner to track the exchange and she responded cautiously.

“What’s he saying?” Rachel finally asked.

“Oh, nothing,” the cashier claimed uncomfortably. “Have a nice day.”

“Thanks, you too,” Rachel replied automatically. “Really, he’s sick. Jeremy! Wait up.” He had picked up his tray and now strode purposefully across the cafeteria.

He looked back and said something to her in Spanish that had a tone of ‘hurry up’ about it. Clearly there was someplace specific he wanted to be, and that was the one table in the room at which other people were seated. The three staff members looked up with some trepidation as he approached, glances pinging between each other as Rachel hurried over.

Jeremy set his tray down on the table and said something demanding in Spanish. Apparently they didn’t speak the language either and thus didn’t do whatever he wanted, causing him to repeat himself more forcefully.

“Jeremy, Jeremy, hey there,” Rachel intervened, catching up. “Let’s sit somewhere else, okay? There’s plenty of empty tables.”

He responded in irritation, gesturing at the three staff members, who looked increasingly nervous.

“He’s just sick, and acting a little weird today,” Rachel assured them. Or maybe that wasn’t actually reassuring at all. She put her hands on Jeremy’s shoulders and steered him away. “Come on, let’s go sit over here.”

Jeremy followed her lead but looked back at the other table in frustration. Then he asked her something.

“Jeremy, I don’t speak Spanish,” she reminded him. “Only English. Use English.” Maybe that Spanish minor her mother had suggested would have been useful after all, she reflected. Although Jeremy could just as easily have chosen to speak in Arabic or Chinese or any of the other languages he knew. “Come on, sit down here.”

He complied, though with ill grace, and started to pick at his food. After a moment he muttered something under his breath.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Rachel admonished. “I don’t know what you said but I know it wasn’t very nice.”

Jeremy protested his poor treatment, or so Rachel imagined from the indignation she heard.

“I’m not oppressing you, or whatever it is you’re complaining about,” Rachel insisted. “Five minutes ago you were speaking English.”

He suggested he was no longer so impressed with her skills.

“Well tough beans, buster,” Rachel responded. “You’re not so endearing yourself right now. Eat your breakfast.”

He ate but didn’t seem to enjoy it, his frustration ebbing into melancholy. Every once in a while Rachel tried speaking to him, but his brain seemed stuck on Spanish at the moment. And he snobbishly turned his nose up at the limited vocabulary she remembered from watching _Sesame Street_ , and the broken French she’d learned in high school. Finally they lapsed into silence as she waited for this warping of reality to pass.

And then, very deliberately, Jeremy picked up one corner of his tray and flipped it over onto the floor. The crash was terrific in the quiet room, eggs and fruit chunks splattering everywhere. For a second Rachel hoped that maybe he’d at least _thought_ he was doing something rational. Then he popped up from the table, neatly avoiding the mess he’d made. “I’m getting out of here,” he declared, in English. “We have to get out of here, Dr. Ward!”

He grabbed at Rachel’s hand but she pulled away, standing quickly. “No. You sit down,” she ordered him, imagining all the panic buttons going off right now.

“I _don’t_ want to be here anymore,” Jeremy ground out. “Come with me.”

Rachel let him take her arm but resisted his pull; he had to stop or risk hurting her. “No, Jeremy,” she said sharply. “Sit back down.”

She didn’t know where he thought he was, or what possible outcomes he was picturing for this scenario. The look he gave Rachel was one of utter betrayal, as though he’d suddenly realized that the person whom he thought was an ally was, in fact, one of his jailers. Rachel put her hand over his on her arm, not breaking eye contact. “Jeremy, it’s okay,” she told him in a softer tone. “Sit back down.” She could see the struggle on his face as he looked between her and his surroundings, trying to reconcile the conflicting information his brain was reporting.

For a long moment they held absolutely still, Rachel straining to hear the thump of guards’ footsteps in the hallway and willing everyone present to _just not move_. Then suddenly Jeremy threw himself back into his chair, burying his head in his arms on the tabletop. Letting out a shaky breath Rachel sat down beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

“It’s okay, tiger,” she told him soothingly. “Shh, it’s okay.”

“No it’s _not_ ,” he said distinctly, voice echoing slightly off the table.

“It’s only temporary,” Rachel reminded him. “It won’t be like this forever. Just a few more days.”

“I could do a lot of bad things in a few days,” he noted darkly.

“But you won’t,” Rachel replied, trying to sound confident. His response was a skeptical sigh.

After a moment Rachel dared to glance around the room. The three staff members had vacated the premises at some point, but there were a number of cafeteria employees watching warily from a distance. “Come on, let’s go,” Rachel suggested. She wasn’t exactly sure _where_ to go, but out of the large, brightly lit cafeteria seemed like a good idea. Jeremy nodded and finally straightened up, looking around as though seeing the room for the first time. He stood meekly when Rachel prompted him and clutched her hand delicately.

“Can I tell them sorry for the mess?” he asked Rachel, and they diverted slowly towards the counter.

Jeremy said something in Spanish to the cashier and one of the cooks, who’d come out to see what all the fuss was about. They nodded gingerly in acknowledgement, then Jeremy turned and trudged out the door in Rachel’s wake.

No evidence of guards presented itself; Rachel had given up trying to figure out what triggered their arrival and who could override that. “Where do you want to go?” she asked Jeremy casually.

“Downstairs,” he decided. She was a little surprised he had an opinion. “It’s harder to escape from down there,” he added glumly.

“Okay,” Rachel agreed. He wanted to take the actual stairs so they changed direction towards them. “Maybe we can find the gym down there,” she suggested, trying to sound more upbeat. “I think you would feel better if you worked out. Do you want me to call Susan and Karl?”

“Not really,” Jeremy admitted. “I think, when I’m better, you should take a vacation, Dr. Ward,” he added after a moment. “You will need supplemental emotional support after dealing with me.”

Rachel didn’t mean to laugh but it kind of burbled out, a release of nervous tension as well as a reaction to the incongruous formality of his statement. Fortunately he didn’t seem offended. “Well, maybe so, tiger,” she agreed. “I could take a couple of days off, anyway. But not until you’re better.”

They exited on a floor Jeremy chose and Rachel found herself wandering through poorly-lit hallways she didn’t remember ever seeing before. There were people around, though, bored guards at their posts and clinicians in white coats scurrying in and out of rooms blocked by keypads and sensors. They glanced dubiously at Jeremy and Rachel as they passed, but they had both cleared the security checkpoints.

“Where are we?” Rachel finally asked.

“Security zone,” Jeremy shrugged. “Training sector.”

“Oh?”

“When we’re preparing for a mission, we come here,” he explained. “For haircuts or fake tattoos or dialect coaching, or if we need to learn a new skill.”

“Oh, so if the agents had a kitchen for learning how to cook, it would probably be down here,” Rachel surmised.

Jeremy gave her an odd look. “Yes, it’s right around the corner,” he revealed. “What made you think of that, Dr. Ward?”

“We were talking about it earlier,” Rachel reminded him. Jeremy took her word for that.

“This is where I came when I was first learning how to raise a puppy, for a mission,” he went on, indicating an empty room with a concrete floor that was currently being hosed down by some workers. “Before we could go outside.”

“How charming,” said Rachel dryly, looking at the forbidding space. “Spaghetti-O’s?”

Jeremy stopped walking and stared at her. “Oh, I guess I must’ve told you that was the dog’s name,” he decided.

“Do you not remember telling me that?” Rachel asked in concern.

Jeremy started moving again. “I guess I do. But I didn’t think it had really happened.”

As they approached the end of the corridor—aimless, Rachel thought, but he seemed calm enough—they started to hear some banging noises and muttered curses, atypical in the quiet, efficient section. Rounding the corner they saw Dennis thumping on a pop machine with his cane, alternating between swearing and swiping his ID badge.

“Do you need help, Dennis?” Jeremy asked politely.

The older man did not look especially pleased to see him. “Oh, it’s _you_ ,” he said, in an unimpressed tone. Carefully he stepped away from the machine. “Sure, give it a try,” he allowed. “Fancy d—n underground training facility and they can’t even get a Coke machine that doesn’t jam,” he muttered.

“It says Pepsi,” Jeremy pointed out. Then he neatly opened the machine like he was opening a refrigerator, snapping the flimsy locking mechanism. “Which one did you want?” he asked. “We have Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Diet Caffeine-Free Pepsi, Wild Cherry Pepsi—“

“Just gimme a Diet Pepsi,” Dennis interrupted.

Jeremy pulled one from a rack, then shut the machine behind himself. Pathetically it yawned open and he frowned, poking at the broken latch.

Dennis snatched the drink from him. “He’s been sick,” Rachel offered apologetically.

“Probably woulda done that anyway,” Dennis snorted. “Oh, leave it alone, Green,” he recommended shortly. “Mechanical engineering isn’t your strength.”

“I think it might be the carburetor,” Jeremy opined thoughtfully. Dennis started to shuffle away and Jeremy decided to abandon his project and follow him, catching Rachel’s hand again as he went by.

“We were looking for the old gym,” Rachel told Dennis, glancing back over her shoulder at the broken pop machine. Hopefully a maintenance crew would find it soon.

“Wrong floor,” Dennis corrected, limping along down the hall.

“Oh. Should we go up or down?”

“Down,” he said, curtly.

Dennis was not always the most welcoming person and Rachel didn’t want to bother him further. “Well, thanks. Let’s find the stairs—“

“Come on,” Dennis interrupted, turning a corner. Jeremy tagged along readily, so Rachel did too. The older man swiped his ID badge at a door in the wall and led the way into a surprisingly cozy office. It didn’t look at all like Rachel’s office, which seemed impersonal and sterile compared to the mishmash of books, photos, sports equipment, and instructional posters that plastered the walls and shelves.

Her eyes landed on one particular photo propped on a shelf. “Oh my G-d, is this Jeremy?” she asked with some excitement, picking it up. “You look so young, tiger! You were, like, twelve.”

Jeremy peered over her shoulder at the group photo, a bunch of agents clustered around Dennis. “I was not twelve,” he judged with a frown. “Karl appears approximately seven years younger.”

“Really? I can’t tell,” Rachel shrugged. “He doesn’t look any different to me. Er, not that you look _old_ now,” she hastened to add, even though Jeremy didn’t seem offended, “you just look really young here. What were you, like mid-twenties? Just a tiger cub,” she teased.

Jeremy was not very interested in the photo and she put it back on the shelf. Dennis had settled into his chair at his desk and Jeremy headed for one of the chairs that faced it. But as Rachel started to join them he sprang up alertly. “Don’t move, Dr. Ward,” he told her, and she froze.

“Why not? What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“There’s a big mud puddle right in front of you,” Jeremy explained. He walked back and forth a little, trying to see a way around it, then finally just took the plunge and stepped in.

“Everything he’s seen, and the best he can come up with is a mud puddle?” Dennis scoffed.

“Believe me, I’m okay with just a mud puddle,” Rachel assured him.

“Can I pick you up, Dr. Ward?” Jeremy asked. “I’ll carry you over the puddle.”

“Okay,” Rachel allowed. “That’s very nice of you.” Jeremy scooped her up, walked a few steps, then sat her down on Dennis’s desk. “Did you get all muddy saving me?” Rachel asked him playfully.

“It’s okay, I’m wearing boots,” Jeremy said, sitting down on the desk beside her.

“D—n fool, always showin’ off for the girls,” Dennis claimed, gruff but with an underlying affection. “Had an accident on the driving track one day,” he went on, speaking of himself, “and this joker comes bounding over, and who does he go for? The pretty girl who’d been driving. I had to wait for that meathead Lund to rescue me.”

“I’m sorry, Dennis,” Jeremy said sincerely, twisting around on the desk to look at him. “I don’t remember that.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Dennis agreed. “Eh, actually I _told_ you to go for the girl first,” he admitted quickly, “since she was hurt worse. Which was just stupid, ‘cause she was an agent and she healed up fine.” He had not, his tone and his cane seemed to say. Rachel had never really heard before how Dennis was injured. It made sense that it was _after_ he’d met the agents, though; it was hard to imagine them taking seriously a trainer who walked in with a limp.

“Was the agent Susan?” Jeremy wanted to know.

“No, it was Charlotte,” Dennis corrected. “You remember Charlotte, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Jeremy answered simply. He gazed off at the wall, his mind clearly far away.

Rachel glanced between the two of them. “I don’t think I’ve met an agent named Charlotte,” she noted, which was just sheer nosiness on her part.

“She’s dead,” Jeremy told her. The thought made him sadder than Rachel would have expected, given how the agents normally interacted, and she was afraid she’d stepped on a landmine.

“Oh. Sorry,” she replied awkwardly, looking to Dennis for assistance.

“It’s okay to remember her,” Dennis advised Jeremy.

The agent hopped off the desk. “Other people don’t agree with you,” he countered, frustration creeping into his voice. He started to pace restlessly around the small room.

Rachel stood as well. “Maybe we should try to find that gym—“ she began.

“Green. Catch.” Dennis tossed Jeremy his ID badge. “Go in there and run some laps. Shoot some hoops.” He gestured to another door in the room. When Jeremy opened it with Dennis’s card, Rachel looked in and saw that it was a very small gym, with no other exits.

“Yeah, go ahead,” she agreed, when he seemed to be waiting for her approval. He handed Dennis’s ID back to her, grabbed a nearby basketball, and took off. “Thanks,” she added to Dennis, returning his card. She settled down in front of his desk. “He’s had a tough time lately.”

Dennis snorted. “Kid’s always had a tough time,” he judged. He tapped on his keyboard and brought up video of Jeremy aimlessly dribbling the basketball in the gym. “Charlotte was his partner,” he added, to Rachel’s surprise.

“I didn’t realize the agents had partners,” she commented.

“They don’t anymore. There he goes.” Jeremy finally started moving more, running up and down the floor with the ball like he was in a game. “She got killed on a mission. Green didn’t handle it well.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Rachel decided thoughtfully.

“They had to hit the reset button on him pretty hard,” Dennis went on with a shrug. “And they scrapped the other agent partnerships. Before they could get too attached to each other.”

“Is that why he can’t remember things, from the past?” Rachel probed. She wondered if she was treading into classified territory here—Dennis had been with the program since the beginning, or so she’d heard.

“Partly,” he replied. “They’ve _all_ been reset at least once. Don’t want those pesky early memories clogging things up.” It was hard to tell if he approved of this process or not. “That pansy-a-s Quarles doesn’t like it mentioned,” he went on, and there was no question how he felt about _that_. Rachel carefully schooled her features into a neutral expression. “But if their mind mumbo-jumbo is so solid, one little thought isn’t gonna bust it. You gotta remember the failures _and_ the successes, or you won’t learn anything from them.”

“His mind is really scrambled eggs by now, isn’t it,” Rachel sighed, watching Jeremy dodge and weave on the screen. “Sometimes I can’t even tell if he’s hallucinating, or it’s just his normal challenge with reality, or if he’s—pretending on purpose.” Jeremy leaped for a slam dunk and grabbed onto the rim of the basketball hoop, then seemingly couldn’t remember how to get down.

Dennis pulled a microphone over. “Drop, Green,” he ordered into it. “Don’t you bend my hoop. Takes weeks to get Maintenance to fix something like that,” he added to Rachel. Obediently Jeremy dropped to the floor, finding it not very far away after all. Then he decided to sit down and do some stretches, which seemed safe enough to Rachel.

“Don’t know if you know this,” Dennis went on, leaning back in his chair, “but he used to be dumb as a box of rocks. Dumber, depending on what kind of rocks you found.”

Rachel’s eyebrows went up. “Jeremy?” Okay, so in some ways he didn’t always seem to act intelligently, but in his natural habitat—the field, on a mission—he displayed a breath-taking array of knowledge, skill, and strategic thinking. Or so she’d been told.

“Oh yeah,” Dennis assured her. “He got juiced up with the others but he was the runt of the litter before that. And believe me, they tried to drown him a couple times.”

Rachel feared he might very well mean that literally, but before she could ask she was momentarily distracted by what Jeremy was doing on the screen. After a moment she decided it was just yoga, but somehow he’d managed to get his pants off without her catching him at it—no doubt he would’ve said his jeans were constricting his flexibility. “Did he used to be a nudist?” she asked dryly.

“No. An acrobat,” Dennis corrected, and she looked up at him in surprise. “Yeah, when he was a kid, like a teenager. Circus acrobat.”

Rachel frowned. “That actually makes sense,” she decided, thinking of his gymnastics routine from the other day, and of the elephant who wouldn’t do tricks.

“Yeah,” Dennis sighed. “He _really_ won’t remember that. He’s a good kid, though,” he judged. “Well, for a ruthless assassin who could kill someone without even blinking,” he qualified. Which was a h—l of a qualification.

“It’s hard to imagine sometimes,” Rachel admitted. Somehow that felt like the most dangerous thing to say of all. “I’d like him to get a couple hours of exercise in,” she told Dennis. “Would you be around to keep an eye on him in there? Can you lock it so he can’t get out if he starts to freak? Usually the delusions only last a few minutes. Or if you’re busy—“ she added quickly.

“I’m at work on a Sunday,” Dennis pointed out flatly. Rachel wasn’t sure which way to go with that one. “Clearly I have nothing better to do with my time. Yeah, I’ll watch him,” he finally muttered.

Rachel hoped that was just Dennis’s natural curmudgeonliness coming through and decided to take him at his word. She could use a little Jeremy break to fully decompress after his behavior this morning, from the trap in his bed to his temper tantrum in the cafeteria. And if he got a workout in, so much the better.

“Thanks, Dennis,” she told him, standing. “I’ll be in my office, and I have my phone on—“ He gave her a look that said she was hovering. “Right. Well—“ She wanted to say something else to him, like, ‘Thanks for being nice to Jeremy all these years’ or ‘Thanks for giving me a giggle about our boss,’ but it seemed like that might just ruin things. He gave her a curt nod, and she left.

**

“Okay, I get that, but I’m telling you, I already rebooted it once,” Rachel was saying into the phone. Calling Tech Support on a Sunday had seemed like a good idea at the time; surely they wouldn’t be busy. But she had neglected to consider that the most helpful and talented people were given Sunday off, or so she was beginning to believe. “The program still won’t open. And, I guess I could work around that, but it seems silly to—“ She sighed. “Sure, I’ll hold. Say hi to your supervisor for me.” The temptation to hang up and try again on Monday was very strong.

A bell dinged and she glanced at the security camera feed to see Jeremy waiting outside the door to her outer office. She pressed the button that let him in, idly wondering if he knew enough about computers to help her out.

“Hey tiger,” she greeted when he entered her office. “Did you have a nice workout? Oh good, you showered.”

“Yes.”

Rachel frowned as no one else came through the door. “Where’s Dennis? Did you leave him in the dust?” She could imagine Jeremy eagerly skipping ahead of the less mobile man, rude though it was.

Jeremy’s expression took on a sudden evasive quality. “Dennis is fine.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I didn’t ask you _how_ he was,” she pointed out. “I asked you _where_ he was.”

“He’s in his office,” Jeremy claimed.

“He sent you up here alone?” Rachel was not sure it was a good idea to let Jeremy wander the Center on his own.

“Yes.”

There was something off about his tone that Rachel didn’t like. She jumped suddenly when the Tech Support guy returned and squawked in her ear. “I’ll call you back,” she told him abruptly, hanging up so she could focus on Jeremy. He fidgeted under the look she gave him. “Dennis said you could walk up here from his office by yourself?”

Jeremy shoved his hands into his pockets and paced a little, which was very unlike him. Of course he was very unlike himself lately. “Yes. What’s the big deal? I made it here, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t have any delusions or anything on the way up?” Rachel probed skeptically.

“It’s not really that far, Dr. Ward,” he tried to tell her, defensively. “You haven’t seen any security alerts, have you?”

She hadn’t. But he was acting in a very fishy manner. “I thought maybe Dennis would walk you up himself,” she went on, watching his reaction closely. “Or maybe call me to come get you.”

“I don’t need a chaperone to ride an elevator up a few floors,” Jeremy insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.

Rachel shrugged. “Well, how was your workout?”

“Fine.”

“Could you give me a little more detail?” she pressed. “What kind of exercises did you do?” Her security camera feed had not automatically followed him into Dennis’s private gym and she hadn’t bothered to call anyone to fix it—now she was wondering if maybe she should have.

“I just played basketball and did yoga and stuff,” Jeremy evaded, walking back and forth again. He reminded her very much of a rebellious student called into the principal’s office, hoping his true offense wouldn’t be discovered.

“Did you get upset again?” she wanted to know. “It’s okay if you did. I’d just like to know.”

“Why would I get upset?” Jeremy asked, sounding slightly upset now. “I didn’t get upset. I was just exercising. I like exercising.”

“Do you not _remember_ getting upset?” Rachel probed.

“How would I know?” he responded in a put-upon tone.

“Jeremy, why don’t you sit down,” she suggested. “Sit down on the couch.”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

“Well, you seem a little wound up,” Rachel pointed out.

“Well, you’re asking me a lot of questions,” Jeremy shot back. “I just got done exercising. It’s supposed to be relaxing. And now I’m all tense again, because you’re asking me all these questions!”

Overdramatic, guilty, evasive, with an attempt at putting the blame back on her and make _her_ feel guilty. Hmm. “Jeremy, where do you think we are?” she tried.

This seemed to be the last straw for him. “We’re in your office, Dr. Ward!” he responded in a plaintive tone. “I’m not having a hallucination. I just don’t like all these questions! Is that not allowed?” he went on, venturing into mild sarcasm. “Do you think I did something bad? Just come out and say it if you think I did something bad.”

Now Rachel was really getting worried. “Jeremy, I didn’t say anything about you doing something bad,” she noted, which only agitated him further. “Are you worried about that? About doing something bad?”

“No, of course not,” he snapped, too quickly. “Why would I be?”

“You were worried about it earlier,” she countered.

His expression became trapped. “Well, I mean, um, sure, sometimes—“ He broke off.

“I’m going to call Dennis and ask him,” Rachel decided, picking up her cell phone.

Jeremy jumped forward, though he stopped himself from actually taking the phone away from her. “Uh, no, don’t call Dennis.”

“Why not?”

“He said he didn’t want to be disturbed,” Jeremy claimed. “When I left, he said he didn’t want to be disturbed, because he had a lot of work to do.”

Which was exactly the opposite of what Dennis had said to _her_. “Oh really.”

“Don’t call him, Dr. Ward, because then he’ll be mad at me, and I’ll get in trouble,” Jeremy tried to tell her. “He turned his phone off, so, you _can’t_ call him, actually.”

A chilling thought occurred to Rachel. It seemed so obvious, _too_ obvious really. If Jeremy was a patient at the high-security hospital she’d worked at before, the idea might fit, but wouldn’t Jeremy be less worked up about it, because of his training? She decided to throw it out there anyway. “Jeremy,” she began slowly, “is Dennis okay?” Or would he act differently, because he was at the Center, and Dennis was a friend?

Immediately Jeremy stiffened up even more and dread spread through Rachel’s stomach. “What do you mean? Of course he’s okay. Why wouldn’t he be okay?”

Rachel called the security monitors. “Can you locate Dennis Jackson, the trainer?” she asked urgently.

“He’s fine, he doesn’t want to be bothered—“ Jeremy insisted.

“Sit down, now,” she ordered him coldly. He sat on the edge of the couch, hands and feet tapping nervously.

“ _Mr. Jackson is in his office, Dr. Ward_ ,” the security monitor reported. “ _Is there a problem?_ ”

“Can you see him? Does he look okay?” Rachel questioned. “Can you send someone to check on him right away?”

“ _Of course, Dr. Ward_ ,” the monitor agreed, hopefully dispatching someone immediately. “ _Is this a medical emergency?_ ”

“I hope not,” Rachel replied darkly. “Let me know if he’s okay.” She hung up and gave Jeremy a stony look.

“He’ll just be mad at me, is all,” Jeremy claimed, with an air of forced casualness. “He’ll be mad at _you_. I was just trying to prevent that.”

Long moments ticked by with Rachel pinning Jeremy to the couch with her stare, evaluating all the ways something could have gone wrong, and what was going to be done with Jeremy as a result. Of course, he wouldn’t have hurt Dennis on purpose; but it would be so easy, to mistake Dennis for something bad, or even something inanimate, or to forget that he wasn’t as durable or mobile—

Rachel answered her phone on the first ring. “Yes?”

“ _Uh, Dr. Ward, this is Security_ ,” said a voice. “ _We’re with Mr. Jackson in his office. He’s fine_.”

Rachel sagged with relief. “He’s fine?” she repeated, hardly believing it. “You’re talking to him, looking at him?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” the guard replied. “ _Maybe you should talk to him_.”

“ _Are you determined to drive me into an early grave?_ ” Dennis snapped into the phone, irascible per usual. “ _Why are you sending these gorillas to bust into my office?_ ”

“Dennis, I was just worried about you,” Rachel tried to explain, “because Jeremy was acting all weird and guilty when he got up here.” She walked around her desk and approached Jeremy on the couch. “I thought something bad had happened.”

“I told you, I didn’t do anything bad,” Jeremy repeated with some distress. Rachel started to run her hand through his hair to comfort him and he threw his arms around her, pressing his face against her side.

“Was he okay when he was with you?” she asked of Dennis, wobbling a little under Jeremy’s attentions.

“ _No_ ,” Dennis answered shortly. “ _There appeared to be several breaks with reality during the last two hours. But I’m fine, because I kept him on the other side of a locked door_ ,” he added pointedly. “ _Because I’m not a total idiot_.” The comment was sharp and, to Rachel, gratingly appropriate.

“Well, thanks for looking after him,” she responded, forced to sit down so Jeremy could put his head in her lap. “Sorry to bother you, glad you’re okay.” She hung up and gave Jeremy a look of exasperation, which he totally missed since his eyes were closed. “What is up with you, squirrel?” she asked, uselessly.

“I’m sick,” he told her, in far too self-satisfied a tone.

“Being sick does not mean you get to do whatever you want, with no consequences,” she warned.

“I told you he would be mad,” Jeremy reminded her instead.

“Well, you were acting like you’d done something wrong,” Rachel tried to explain to him, wondering if there was any point. He kept squirming until she went back to petting him.

“If I really did something wrong, I wouldn’t _act_ like I did,” he claimed pragmatically, and Rachel sighed. There was a fine line between accepting one’s illness as part of life, and wallowing in it; and she feared Jeremy was getting dangerously close to that line, what with all the attention he’d been getting from her lately.

Or maybe he was just starting to unravel completely.

He was able to lie there quietly for a few minutes—completely monopolizing her, without even a magazine within reach that she could read—though if she’d picked one up, she suspected he would find a way to distract her from it. But at least he was quiet. And, really, he had a pretty good excuse right now—but if his excuse lasted into, say, Wednesday when the drug had supposedly worn off, she was going to have a very stern talk with him.

Wednesday seemed like a very long time away.

“Let me up a minute so I can go to the bathroom,” she told him finally. He made a whine of protest. “I will be right back, and trust me, you will not like what happens if you don’t,” she threatened. Grudgingly Jeremy let her get up. “Do not leave this room,” she added firmly, ducking into her bathroom. She belatedly wondered if perhaps she should’ve locked the main doors behind him or something.

When she came out of the bathroom a few moments later, Jeremy was no longer in sight. But it wasn’t hard to tell where he’d gone: the coffee table had been pushed up against the couch and a blanket was draped over the whole thing, with the couch cushions leaning against the exposed side of the table for good measure. Rachel was tempted to leave him there. But the whole issue with forting was that you didn’t know what the stressed agent was getting up to out of sight like that—not that he would necessarily do something _bad_ , but if he got upset or sick Rachel might not realize it fast enough. This consideration finally spurred her to action.

“Jeremy,” she summoned. “Jeremy, are you okay?” No answer, which was not exactly a surprise. “Jeremy, you know I can’t let you stay under there,” she pointed out. “Why don’t we pull the blanket back, just a little, so I can see you, and then you can stay under there for a while, until lunch time?” No response. With a sigh Rachel knelt down on the floor and started to remove the couch cushions.

“It’s not very nice to disassemble someone’s fort,” Jeremy complained—from behind her, making Rachel yelp in surprise and plop down hard on the floor. He crossed his arms over his chest unrepentantly, waiting for her answer.

“Was this another trap?” she accused. “Was your goal to have me hanging by one foot from the ceiling?”

“No, I was just checking the integrity of my fort from the outside before using it,” he claimed.

“So you just let me talk to myself, huh?” Rachel surmised, unimpressed.

Jeremy sat down on the floor beside her, his manner suddenly contrite. “I just… I get tired of being watched all the time,” he mumbled, staring off into the distance. “I just want to be alone for a little while.”

“I know, buddy,” Rachel sighed. She leaned over and put her head in _his_ lap, figuring turnabout was fair play. “But you can’t really do that when you’re sick, it just makes people worry.”

“Why else _would_ I do it?” he noted, brushing Rachel’s hair gently like she did for him. “If I wasn’t sick.”

She did not have a good answer for that. She felt she had a pretty good track record of not automatically assuming the agents were about to cause mayhem all the time; and deciding that only those with something to hide would _be_ hiding was a slippery slope indeed. But on the other hand she had a hallucinating agent who had demonstrated several times in the last few days that his judgment was severely impaired. So it was only being sensible to suspend civil liberties at the moment.

Though it was foolish to pretend he would have any kind of freedom _after_ he was feeling better. Or that he’d had any before.

“What do you want to do after lunch?” Rachel asked, fearing the silence would make him broody.

“Can I draw with the crayons again?” Jeremy asked. “I think I would like to do that.”

“Yeah, that would be fine,” Rachel encouraged him, pleased to be able to accommodate that request.

“I’m going to move a little bit,” he advised her, scooting over so he could lean back against the couch cushion.

Rachel readjusted herself. “This is very comfortable,” she claimed. “I see why you like it.” Actually a pillow might nice, and lying on the floor was kind of hard. But it seemed to keep Jeremy calm, as he carefully stroked her hair.

“What’s your favorite animal?” Rachel asked randomly, both to distract him and to track whether he was delusional or not.

“Tigers,” he answered promptly and she smiled a little bit.

“Is that because they’re orange?” Rachel teased. “Orangutans are orange, too. And, um… clownfish!”

“No, it’s because you call me ‘tiger,’” Jeremy corrected. Understatement did not always work for him. “But if I ever met a real tiger I probably wouldn’t like it much, because it might attack me. Except Snowflake was nice.”

Rachel’s eyes, which had drifted shut, popped back open. “Who’s Snowflake?”

“A white tiger at the—“ Jeremy stopped talking abruptly.

Rachel waited a beat. “Jeremy?” No answer, and his hand seemed frozen in her hair. She sat up quickly and saw him staring fixedly off into space. “At the circus?” she ventured, remembering what Dennis had told her.

Jeremy gave a little shudder, more like a twitch, then blinked and looked at Rachel. “Sorry, Dr. Ward, what did you ask?”

“Who’s Snowflake?” Rachel risked.

Jeremy gazed at her for a long moment but finally had to concede defeat. “I’m sorry, could you give me some additional context?”

“Never mind,” Rachel decided. “It’s just interesting that sometimes these hallucinations shake loose memories that you can’t recall consciously.”

“That could be dangerous,” Jeremy pointed out. “Have you compared the ingredients in this antivenom compound to LSD? Experiments in the 1940’s and ‘50’s showed LSD could trigger recall of repressed memories.”

“I knew that,” Rachel assured him. “How did _you_ know that?”

“Mission research.”

“That must have been a h—l of a mission.” He shrugged modestly. “I do notice, however, that you usually stop talking before you get to the really good part, whether it’s about a mission or just some other memory,” she commented thoughtfully.

“Well, that’s good,” Jeremy claimed. “I shouldn’t be telling you classified things about missions.”

“What about shooting a cop for some diamonds?” Rachel asked pointedly. She was not arrogant enough to think she couldn’t be removed from this program; but as long as she didn’t start googling crimes or pressing for details, she felt reasonably safe hearing the stray bits that tumbled from Jeremy’s mind.

“I don’t remember doing anything like that,” he insisted. “But I watched a movie once where that happened.” The steady look he gave her could have indicated the truth, or a very good lie. Rachel decided this point didn’t need clarification.

“Well don’t start imagining you’re in any zombie movies,” she finally warned.

“Can we have lunch now?” Jeremy asked, standing abruptly. “I’m really hungry.”

“Sure,” Rachel sighed. He pulled her carefully to her feet. “After lunch you will clean up your fort, and then you can have the crayons.” It seemed to help when she laid out the next steps in their plan clearly for him. “Maybe mid-afternoon you can go to the gym with Susan and Karl.” And it helped her, too, when the day seemed to stretch before her, a gaping chasm of unstructured time when she had to find some way to occupy him.

They rode down in the elevator quietly. Every once in a while Jeremy tried to walk off it, stopping with his nose almost pressed to the unopened doors, looking around in confusion. “Not there yet, tiger,” Rachel reminded him tolerantly, lightly squeezing his hand. When the elevator really _did_ stop and open its doors, he let Rachel exit first, watching her progress dubiously. She wondered if she appeared to him to walk right through the wall.

The cafeteria had a few people in it, but it was still a bit early for lunch and, after all, the weekend. Jeremy still seemed chastened by his earlier behavior there and nodded soberly at the workers, not daring to speak. As they slid down the line he started itching—first his arm, then his side, then his neck.

“Jeremy?” Rachel questioned. He gave her a blank look. “You’re itching.”

“I itch,” he confirmed unhelpfully, pawing at his shoulder.

There was no one behind them, so Rachel stopped to examine him. “Okay, where does it itch?” He indicated the side of his neck and she inspected that area carefully, seeing only the faint red marks he himself had put there. It was the same on his arm and his side. “I don’t see anything, so it’s probably just your imagination,” she decided.

“It’s _really_ itchy,” Jeremy complained, as the sensation apparently spread. “There’s no rash or bite or anything?”

“No, you’re fine,” Rachel assured him, trying to move down the line. “Don’t think about it.”

Jeremy squirmed around, drawing attention from others nearby. “It’s really _hard_ not to think about it,” he insisted.

“Hey! Don’t scratch so hard,” Rachel admonished when she saw the faint trails he was leaving on his skin. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Dr. Ward, it really itches!”

“Pretend you’re on a mission,” she suggested. She thrust his tray of food into his hands. “Hold this. With both hands. Your mission depends on carrying that tray safely to the table.”

“I’m not sure roleplay is really a good idea right now,” Jeremy muttered, nonetheless trying to comply. He hopped impatiently in place as their food was totaled up by the cashier, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder and itching one leg with his other foot.

“Both feet on the floor,” Rachel ordered. “Pretend you’re carrying something volatile and explosive, and no matter what, you have to get it to the table intact.”

Jeremy tried very hard to be still. He had been well-trained to subsume personal urges to the mission, of course, and he took deep, calming breaths as he followed Rachel to the table. Delicately he set his tray down, then seemed to go mad itching himself.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Rachel intervened. “Sit down. Give me your hands. Both feet on the floor. Breathe.” Jeremy closed his eyes and tried to comply, the effort visible. He actually started to sweat a little bit, which made Rachel nervous. Hives were a listed side effect of the antivenom medicine, though she would’ve thought they’d appear before now.

After a few moments Jeremy’s breathing became less labored and he opened his eyes, gazing at Rachel curiously. “Are we praying over the food?” he guessed.

She let his hands go. “No. Don’t you remember what just happened?”

“I remember several different things,” he informed her cautiously. “I’m not sure which really happened.”

“But one of your fantasies involved praying over the meal?” she teased, starting to eat.

“That was merely supposition based on context,” Jeremy claimed. “Though, I’ve gone undercover as a religious leader more than once.”

For some reason Rachel found this very funny. “I picture you as some kind of gun-slinging priest,” she snickered. “We could go to a lot of bad places with this.” Jeremy didn’t seem to share her humor, or maybe he just hadn’t seen the requisite number of quirky action movies.

A moment later. “Jeremy, why are you holding your hands like that?” Well, the ‘why’ was obvious, of course, but she wasn’t sure how else to draw his attention to it.

“They’re tied together,” he pointed out, as though this should be obvious. Considering that he’d locked one wrist across the other, he was actually still doing well at eating his lunch. Rachel supposed he had plenty of practice being in this situation. “A better question is, _why_ are my hands tied together,” he proposed.

“Yes, that _is_ a good question,” Rachel agreed, picking idly at her salad. “Why do you think?”

Jeremy paused and looked at her balefully. “Am I being restrained so I can’t hurt anyone?”

Immediately Rachel felt bad. “No, honey,” she assured him, rubbing his hand. “You aren’t tied up at all, you’re just imagining it.”

Jeremy tried tugging his hands apart but was unsuccessful. “Well, I can cut the ropes,” he decided, picking up a table knife and expertly flipping it around.

“Jeremy, stop,” Rachel told him firmly and he stared at her expectantly. “I don’t want you to cut yourself. Put the knife down. Okay?”

“Okay, Dr. Ward,” he agreed. “I can get out of them another way—“

“Give me your hand,” she instructed. Once one was firmly clasped in her own, she knocked his orange off the table.

Jeremy’s hands separated and he caught the fruit as it dropped over the edge. The look he gave her was slightly reproachful. “Why did you push my orange away?” he wanted to know.

“Reflex test,” Rachel claimed, letting him go. He seemed to accept this.

They ate quietly for a few minutes. Then Rachel noticed that his posture had changed, become a little more upright, and he glanced around the cafeteria frequently. Overall he was relaxed, though, and continued eating normally, so she shrugged it off.

“So, after lunch, crayons?” Rachel remarked experimentally. “Did you finish the books Susan brought you? Do you want more?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Jeremy claimed, which was not how he usually phrased things. “Maybe we could watch a movie later, an action flick or something. Do they have any here? Surely they must.”

“Where do you think we are?” Rachel inquired curiously.

Jeremy gave her an odd look, then snorted. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, they probably only have romantic comedies and Disney cartoons,” he scoffed. “Nothing violent or scary, don’t want to alarm anyone.”

“No, that would be bad,” Rachel agreed, trying to play along. Obviously he thought he was somewhere specific, but as long as he wasn’t upset about it, she supposed there was no point in trying to figure it out.

Then suddenly Jeremy jumped slightly, as though startled, and looked around alertly. “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked.

“The alarm,” he pointed out, although Rachel didn’t hear anything. “S—t. Maybe it’s just a drill—“ At that moment two staff members entered the cafeteria and Jeremy stared at them in horror. Before Rachel could ask he grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the hall.

She dragged her feet. “Jeremy! What’s going on? Everything’s fine—“

“Are you crazy?!” he snapped. “Come on!” When she wouldn’t move he simply picked her up and ran down the hall.

“Jeremy! Put me down!” Rachel demanded. He turned a corner, spotted someone at the end of it, and immediately went back the other way. “Jeremy, whatever you think is wrong, you’re just imagining it! You’re sick, it’s not real!”

Jeremy sprinted into the stairwell and up two flights, still carrying Rachel. “Not real?” he hissed at her. “Do you not understand what’s going on here, Doc?” He peeked out the window of the door to the hall, then ducked back suddenly.

“No, I don’t understand,” Rachel admitted. “Explain it to me.” Jeremy rolled his eyes and tried to drag her up the next set of stairs. Rachel grabbed onto the railing to resist—he would hurt her if he pulled any harder. “I don’t understand!” she repeated forcefully. “Tell me what you think is happening.”

“You really don’t—S—t!” Jeremy swore as a guard looked through the window at them. He picked Rachel up again and headed back downstairs. “Come on or I’ll leave you for them!”

They went down into a basement level, Jeremy finally leaving the stairs and racing down a hallway pulling Rachel behind him. Every time he saw someone he went another way, finally ducking down in a corner behind some crates. “How the f—k did this happen?” he muttered, more to himself. “They said they had it under control—“ He pounded his fist into the wall, anger and frustration in every movement.

Rachel was still trying to catch her breath. She didn’t know if Jeremy was stuck in some kind of mission persona or what; but he was _scared_ , that much she could tell. Whenever he saw someone else he was terrified of them. “Jeremy, what—“

He turned on her suddenly, eyes blazing. “How could you be here and not understand the risks?” he demanded. “Didn’t you see the footage from the last outbreak? Did you think it was just fake, a movie?”

Rachel took a breath, trying to be patient. “Just tell me what you know,” she ordered firmly.

He glanced around first, making sure no one else had come into the hall. “We can’t stay here, it’s not secure,” he noted. “Just—don’t let them touch you. They’ll rip you to pieces,” he warned, and Rachel’s eyes widened. “Or worse, you’ll be infected, and I’ll have to—“ He looked away suddenly and Rachel’s heart pounded as she realized what he’d been about to say.

“What-what infection?” she asked apprehensively.

He growled in frustration. “There’s no time for this!”

“Just—what if _you_ get infected?” Rachel tried. “What should I do?” Maybe that would give her some kind of clue about what was going on here—in his mind, anyway.

Jeremy gave her a humorless smirk. “I’m immune, Doc,” he replied. “That’s why I was sent here. But they could still kill me if they got a hold of me, I guess,” he decided. He pinned Rachel with a look. “If anything happens to me, just keep running,” he commanded her fiercely. “Don’t let them touch you. There’s a—You don’t know how to fly a helicopter, do you?” Rachel shook her head. “S—t. We’ve gotta get to a secure location, somewhere with a radio, maybe Flynn’s still out there—“

Rachel took his face in her hands and turned him to look at her. “Jeremy. What outbreak? What disease is this?”

“The virus, the rage virus,” he finally told her. “Passed through bodily fluids. One of them bites you, in twenty seconds it’s spread through your system. You can’t think about anything, you’re just filled with mindless rage, a rabid animal. You just want to destroy everything.” By the end of his explanation he sounded exhausted, hopeless.

“Okay, well, that’s medically impossible,” Rachel began, trying to think of any zombie movies they’d watched that had this plot. Had she somehow sown the seeds for this delusion by mentioning zombies earlier? If so he’d concocted a rather elaborate backstory on his own.

“Impossible?” he repeated with a sigh. “Yeah. I wish.” He shook his head, trying to focus. “Okay, the only way out is by air. We need a chopper or something. And a radio, and guns.”

Rachel froze. “Guns?”

“You gotta shoot ‘em in the head to stop them,” Jeremy advised her. “Or several body shots might do it, but these f----rs will crawl along for a long time even with half their body missing—“

“Jeremy, you-you can’t have a gun.” She doubted he’d get to a helicopter before the delusion wore off (though it was taking its sweet time); and if he found a radio, fine, she was sure the security monitors could jam the signal. But he could do a lot of damage with a gun, if he thought everyone he saw was a raging zombie. And as soon as he picked one up—he’d be the target of every guard in the Center. If he wasn’t already. “You can’t have a gun, Jeremy. Just think for a minute—“

“A rifle would be good,” he was saying. “I’m a sniper, maybe you didn’t know that—“

Rachel grabbed his hands. “ _No_ , Jeremy. You can’t have a gun. There’s no virus, there’s no outbreak. You’re just sick and you’re imagining this.” She reached up to stroke his hair. “Okay? Everything’s fine.”

A look of uncertainty crossed his face. “I feel like—maybe I _shouldn’t_ have a gun,” he admitted. “But I don’t understand _why_ , it’s what I _do_ —“ He looked up suddenly, alert. Rachel didn’t see or hear anything, though. “We’re right below the executive lounge,” he determined. “That would be a secure location, at least for a while. Can you make it, Doc?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Rachel agreed, not sure why he would think otherwise. “It would be better if we didn’t meet anyone on our way there,” she added pointedly, in a louder tone, hoping whoever was watching them (and she was certain _someone_ was) got her drift.

“Very true,” Jeremy agreed. “Come on.” He ducked out from behind the crate, then pulled Rachel up. He put one of her arms around his shoulders and his own arm around her waist, helping her along as though he thought she was injured. They hobbled quickly towards the stairs.

“I didn’t get bitten, did I?” Rachel checked, glad he seemed to have forgotten about acquiring a gun for the time being.

“No,” Jeremy assured her as they hopped up the steps. “Believe me, you wouldn’t still be around if you had.” That sounded more than a little sinister to Rachel. “You were shot, remember?”

“Oh,” Rachel replied, as if she suddenly _did_ remember. “Sorry, I guess I’m disoriented. Um, from blood loss. Who shot me?”

“One of the other soldiers,” Jeremy said grimly. “Do you remember the Code Red being called?” Rachel shook her head. “We were supposed to liquidate everyone, to contain the infection.” They turned the corner on the stairs, continuing upward. “You were on the ground with some of the civilians and you got nicked as we were trying to get out.”

The story seemed to be changing, Rachel noted, from merely noticing something was wrong while sitting in the cafeteria, to having an entire history that she, apparently, had been incorporated into. “Uh, why weren’t you up on a roof somewhere, shooting at people, Mr. Sniper?” she asked, trying to keep him engaged.

“I was,” he told her darkly. “But it didn’t seem right, shooting at civilians. I’m supposed to avoid harming innocent people, if at all possible.” He sounded more like himself momentarily. “And there were too many infected, for just shooting at individuals to help anything. I thought maybe I could find survivors on the ground and get them out.”

“Did you?” Rachel asked curiously.

He smirked grimly. “You’re the only one left, Doc.”

“Great.”

He leaned her up against the wall and peered carefully out the window in the door. If they were where Rachel thought they were, there should be two guards at a checkpoint just beyond the door. She wasn’t sure what he would see them as. “Okay, looks clear,” Jeremy reported, to Rachel’s surprise. He opened the door cautiously and took a broader look, then gestured for her to join him. The two guard posts had been abandoned, Rachel saw, and the gate they watched stood open. Rationally, she figured they’d been told to get out of sight temporarily to avoid conflict with Jeremy, but it was still really creepy to see the hallway empty and the gate yawning open. Like something horrible really _had_ happened.

Straight across the hall, through the gate, was the door to the executive lounge. “Keep watch,” Jeremy hissed at her, when she tried to watch him hack the keypad. How the agents managed to bypass these security measures was a total mystery to her. The door slid open and Jeremy pulled her inside, then shut the door behind her. “Stand here,” he ordered, positioning her in the center of the room. “I need to secure the perimeter. If you see anything bad, don’t keep quiet.” He vanished around a corner.

Rachel had never been in the executive lounge before. It had a cozy, English gentlemen’s club feel to it, lots of wood and leather and fake plants. She tried to imagine Quarles and Delu sipping sherry before the fireplace and discussing important work matters—like what to do about their hallucinating agent.

“Jeremy?” she called after a moment, not wanting to lose track of him. “Jeremy, where are you?” Her phone rang suddenly, startling her. “Hello?”

“ _Dr. Ward_.” It was Quarles, and he didn’t sound happy.

“Hey, can you see Jeremy?” she asked immediately.

“ _He’s securing the perimeter_ ,” the director informed her dryly. “ _He’s managed to close the blast doors. So you should be safe against the rage virus victims_.”

“Uh, sir, maybe I shouldn’t ask this,” Rachel ventured, “but is this somehow related to a mission he had, or—“

“ _No comment_ ,” Quarles replied, which was meaningless. “ _You’re the one who shows him zombie movies, though_.”

“I think I’m going to stop doing that,” Rachel decided.

“ _If he doesn’t give this up soon, we may have to tranq him_ ,” Quarles warned.

“Can you do it through the air vents?” Rachel asked. She almost wished she could see the expression on her boss’s face; usually she advocated _against_ any kind of sedative. But this delusion was getting extreme, especially with his mention of guns. “I think it would be really bad to send guards in. Um, I have this thing—“ she began hesitantly.

“ _The half-dose dart?_ ” Quarles interrupted. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised he knew about that. “ _You have it with you?_ ”

“Yes.”

“ _It would be nice if you used it_.”

“Well, let me see if he’s calmed down,” she countered. She held the phone against her shoulder. “Jeremy? Jeremy, please come back, I’m scared to be alone here.”

He popped up immediately. “Are you okay, Doc?” he wanted to know. He didn’t seem to notice the cell phone.

“I’m okay, but I was getting scared without you,” she told him. “Are we safe now?”

“The perimeter is secure,” he informed her. “Here, you can sit down. Put your leg up. You want me to take a look at it?”

“No, it’s okay,” Rachel tried. “We put a field dressing on it earlier, remember?”

Jeremy blinked. “Right,” he agreed slowly. “It should be okay for a while.”

So that told Rachel that maybe she could influence this delusion, at least a little bit. “So, we’re secure in here, right? We don’t have to worry about anything.” She phrased this as a statement, not a question. “Sit down next to me.”

He sat. “The blast doors should hold for a long time,” he agreed. “The infected can’t really problem-solve, it’s all brute force. And we have food and water.”

“So we’ll just chill here for a while, have a snack,” Rachel nodded, “and then maybe you’d like to go work out with Susan and Karl.”

He almost agreed. Then he paused. “I don’t—“ He jumped up and began to pace furiously.

“I’ll call you back,” Rachel said into the phone, and hung up. “Jeremy. Jeremy, come here. Sit down.”

He shook his head. “We need—we need to get to a chopper, we need a radio, we need weapons—“

“No weapons,” Rachel told him firmly. “We don’t need them. What happens to the infected, long-term?”

“Well, if they don’t kill each other, they’ll probably starve to death,” he reasoned. “They don’t really stop to eat.”

“So that happened,” Rachel claimed. “We’ve been in here for a couple months, and they all starved to death.” Jeremy turned to gaze at her steadily and she tried not to shrink back. “Yeah, a couple months was probably overly cautious, but we wanted to be sure,” she pressed on. “And then we heard from some survivors that everything is okay now.”

“Heard from who?” Jeremy asked suspiciously.

“Starfleet Command,” Rachel insisted seriously. “It was Admiral Kirk himself on the radio, announcing that everything was fine.” Maybe it was a raging Tribble epidemic.

She wasn’t sure he actually believed her. But he sat down beside her on the couch at least. “It would be bad for me to have weapons. Here,” he remembered haltingly.

Rachel took his hand. “That’s right,” she encouraged. “You’re supposed to be calm here. You don’t need weapons.”

“But I have to defend—“ He seemed to lose his train of thought.

“No weapons,” Rachel said firmly. “No need to attack anyone. There’s no zombies here.”

“They’re not zombies, they’re infected with a rage virus,” Jeremy corrected sullenly, as if she was spoiling his story by telling it wrong.

“Can we stop talking about them, please?” Rachel requested.

Jeremy held up his hand as if telling her to wait just a minute, then dug briefly into his pocket. He didn’t pull anything out, however. “What do you want to talk about, Dr. Ward?” he asked, in a more or less normal tone.

She sighed. “Come here.” Jeremy curled up against her readily. Big, tough sniper-man probably wouldn’t do that, she judged. “Do you know where we are?”

“The executive lounge.”

“Do you know why we’re here?”

“We’re chilling and having a snack,” Jeremy replied. “Only I don’t see any snacks. Did we do that already?”

“No, not yet.”

“Oh.”

“Do you remember why we came to the executive lounge, specifically?” Rachel continued.

Jeremy squirmed a little. “I can think of a couple possibilities,” he admitted. “Was a giant squid involved?”

“No,” Rachel assured him, glad she’d missed that particular storyline.

He looked up at her hesitantly. “Did it involve zombies?”

“Oh, they’re not _zombies_ ,” Rachel informed him loftily. “They’re infected with a _rage virus_.”

Jeremy buried his face against her leg. “Did I hurt anybody?” he asked in a small voice.

Rachel rubbed the back of his head. “No. But you made people very nervous by talking about shooting at them.”

“I’m sorry.” His tone indicated he understood this sentiment to be wholly inadequate.

“Well, I guess you didn’t do it on purpose,” Rachel noted. “And you were a little iffy on the guns, you knew you shouldn’t have one.” Jeremy sighed despondently. “You had a pretty detailed plot going there, did you see it in a movie or something?”

There was an uncharacteristic pause. “Training video game,” Jeremy claimed, just smoothly enough that Rachel wondered if that was really the truth.

“That would make a good video game,” she agreed anyway.

“Did you tell me _Starfleet Command_ had contacted us?” he asked after a moment, tone slightly accusatory.

“I was trying to sound authoritative.”

“It’s not nice to mess with people who are having delusions,” he said grumpily. She made a soothing noise and rubbed his back.

Suddenly there was a pounding at the door and Rachel jumped in surprise, her mind inadvertently going straight to the raging infected throwing themselves at it, trying to get to the fresh meat they smelled inside. “What the h—l,” she muttered in irritation, heart pounding.

“It’s just the guards, I think,” Jeremy assured her.

The noise was loud and unnerving. “Well, why are they doing it?” she snapped, directing her question towards a camera in the corner of the ceiling. “I mean, J---s, we’re coming out. Is someone afraid we’ll mess up the furniture?”

“They can’t hear you,” Jeremy informed her matter-of-factly. “Or see us. That’s probably why they’re trying to get in.”

For a second Rachel wondered if he’d meandered into another hallucination already. “What?”

“I turned on a signal jammer.”

“You have a _signal jammer_?” Rachel asked skeptically.

“Try your phone,” Jeremy suggested.

Rachel pulled it out and looked at the display, which showed no bars. When she tried to make a call all she got was an error. “You have a signal jammer,” she concluded. “Don’t tell me anything else about it. Why did you turn it on?”

“Oh, I just don’t like being watched all the time,” Jeremy shrugged.

“Well, I think they were watching you pretty closely, pal,” she pointed out. “I can see why they’re mad.”

“I’ll turn it off, I guess.”

“Sit up first,” Rachel instructed him. “Let’s not look like anything untoward went on.”

Jeremy sat up and then dug into his pocket again. Almost immediately Rachel’s cell phone rang. “ _Dr. Ward, what just happened?_ ” Quarles demanded icily before she could even speak.

Rachel didn’t want to tattle on Jeremy first thing, though his little gadget would have to be revealed eventually. “Um, what do you think happened?” she tried, and she heard her boss’s teeth grit on the other end of the line.

“ _Does he have a signal jammer in his possession?_ ” Quarles ground out. Apparently this was not the first time they’d had this problem.

“Yeah, I think so,” Rachel replied lightly. “Anyway, he’s feeling a lot better, no more zombies or anything.” She noticed the pounding on the door had finally stopped. “We were just about to leave and go to, uh…” Actually they hadn’t really discussed that part yet. “Maybe the gym…”

“ _No_ ,” Quarles denied. “ _You are going to take him somewhere contained and_ keep _him there. No more darting around the building_ ,” he ordered.

“Oh.” Rachel wasn’t sure Jeremy would like being ‘contained.’ “Well, he didn’t hurt anyone, you know—“ she tried to point out.

“ _He_ _abducted a staff member and barricaded himself in a room he shouldn’t even be able to enter_ ,” Quarles countered sharply. “ _While under the impression everyone around him was a dangerous enemy who should be killed. So take him to his room or your office, Dr. Ward_ ,” he added, “ _or the next stop will be secure confinement_.” He hung up.

Rachel sighed. “Did you hear that?” she asked Jeremy. He nodded forlornly, accepting the restriction as his just punishment. “Well, where do you want to go? My office?” He was spending a lot of time in his room as it was.

“Okay,” he agreed without enthusiasm.

“Come on, tiger,” Rachel encouraged, standing. She reached out her hand and after a moment he took it. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t think you abducted me, by the way.”

“I remember picking you up and carrying you when you wouldn’t come with me,” he pointed out, releasing the doors. The hallway was empty when they stepped out.

“Well, you didn’t want to hurt me,” Rachel reasoned. “We were _escaping_.”

“You shouldn’t make excuses for me,” Jeremy said, giving her a chiding look.

“Well no one else will,” Rachel muttered. “Say, where did you get a signal jammer, anyway?” she added quickly when he glanced at her.

Jeremy shrugged. “Oh, around,” he replied vaguely. “They’re very useful on missions.”

They made their way back up to Rachel’s office, encountering a few people along the way but no one who seemed especially nervous—or who made Jeremy nervous. So at least there hadn’t been a building-wide alert about him or anything like that.

“So, you want me to get out the crayons?” Rachel asked with somewhat forced enthusiasm as they walked down the hall towards her office. She hoped she didn’t sound too much like a kindergarten teacher—the crayons had been hard enough to find, she hadn’t held out hope for anything more sophisticated like colored pencils or oil pastels.

Jeremy made a discouraged noise. “I think I’d rather just take a nap,” he decided.

“Well, maybe for a little while,” Rachel allowed. “I don’t want you to sleep too much and get depressed.” She stopped at the door to her outer office, about to swipe her ID card to enter, when Jeremy walked right past her—straight into the closed doors, hard enough that he bounced off and landed on the floor with a painful-sounding thump.

“Oh G-d, are you okay?” Rachel asked immediately, kneeling down beside him. She tried to examine his face but he kept wobbling around and finally buried his head in his arms on his knees. “Jeremy,” Rachel soothed, putting her arm around his shoulders. “What happened? Did you think the door was open?”

“No, I thought it was closed,” he admitted, sniffling slightly as he finally looked up. One side of his face had a large red impact mark. “But then I thought, no, it’s probably really open, if I think it’s closed.” Even his attempt to account for his delusions had backfired, apparently.

“I think you are gonna have a shiner, buddy,” Rachel assessed regretfully. “From walking into a door. Huh, I didn’t think that really happened.” She pushed herself back to her feet. “Come on, we’ll put some ice on it.” Miserably Jeremy climbed back up, fighting gravity all the way it seemed. Rachel took his arm firmly and guided him through the office. “We’ll get you some ice, and you can take a nap—“ They stopped in the doorway to her inner office, surveying the mess Jeremy had left behind with his fort, which Rachel at least had completely forgotten about.

“Can I get under there?” Jeremy asked. “It’s all ready. It has excellent structural integrity.”

Rachel hated to deny him something he showed a glimmer of interest in. “You’d have to keep your head out,” she warned. “So I could make sure you were okay.”

His shoulders slumped. “Not much of a fort, then,” he pointed out. “I guess I’ll put the cushions back on the couch.”

“I’ll get you a cold pack for your eye,” Rachel decided, heading back into the exam room. A thought occurred to her and after a moment she went on through to the outer office and approached the control panel by the door, studying it with a frown.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy asked curiously, from right behind her which made her jump. “Sorry. I might have been stealthy on accident.”

“Well, that happens,” Rachel replied dryly. “Uh, actually I’m trying to figure out how to keep you locked in here,” she admitted. No point in trying to hide it, after all.

“That’s a good idea,” Jeremy agreed pragmatically. He pressed a few commands on the keypad. “Swipe your ID. No, you should use your fingerprint,” he altered. “That way I can’t just steal your ID to get out.”

“You’d have to steal my finger, huh?” Rachel commented lightly, sealing the order with her fingerprint. The screen flashed red. “Oh my G-d, I didn’t just bomb Russia, did I?”

“No,” Jeremy assured her. “This facility doesn’t have direct nuclear strike capability.”

That sentence had way too many qualifications for Rachel’s taste, so she decided to not think about it. “How do I know you’re really locked in?” she challenged him with mock sternness. Jeremy swiped his fingerprint over the scanner and tried to open the doors, per usual. It didn’t work, however. “Hmm, good job,” Rachel praised. “Did you put the couch back together?”

“Yes.”

They walked back through the exam room and Rachel got a cold pack for Jeremy’s face, which was already swelling up. “Okay, just lay down there, tiger,” she directed. “There you go. You want a blanket? Okay, we’ll keep this on your face for a few minutes, then take it off,” she instructed, adjusting the ice pack.

“Thank you,” he mumbled under the cold pack.

“It’s okay,” Rachel told him, more out of force of habit than because it was true. “Get some sleep now.” She tucked the blanket around him and went back to her desk to (try to) get some work done, which was not easy with him staring at her. Eventually his eyes drifted shut, which was a little better, but to say that requisition paperwork could not hold Rachel’s attention was an understatement.

An hour later she was trying to decide when she ought to wake him when suddenly he sat up, startling her. He blinked rapidly and gazed around the room, slightly disoriented, picking at the soggy ice pack in confusion. “Feeling better, tiger?” Rachel said, and his attention snapped to her with unnerving intensity. “Uh, your face looks better, I think—“ As though just now realizing he was injured Jeremy probed carefully at the bruise. He seemed to decide it wasn’t worth worrying about and stood with determination.

Rachel had a bad feeling about this. “So, what do you want to do now?” she asked anyway, a bit desperately as she followed him into the exam room. He assessed its contents with a look, then kept going into the outer office. “Jeremy. Remember, you’re supposed to stay here.” He didn’t seem to remember and was surprised when his fingerprint failed to open the outer door for him. “Jeremy. Hey. Could you maybe acknowledge my existence as a fellow human being?”

He was poking quickly at the keypad and then a picture of Rachel flashed on the screen, indicating her as the person who could unlock the doors. That really wasn’t a very good security feature, Rachel decided, in the instant before Jeremy turned to face her. “Jer—“ His name died in her throat, because the look he was giving her was cold, calculating, and worse, devoid of any recognition. Rachel tried again, firmly. “Jeremy.”

Assuming he even _knew_ his name, the fact that she knew it, too, made no impression on him. In two strides Jeremy crossed the room and grabbed her shoulders, dragging her back towards the door. “Jeremy, stop it, let me go,” Rachel ordered, planting her feet against the slick floor. Her shoes squeaked on the tiles as his strength overcame hers. “Jeremy, you’re not supposed to leave here, stop and think—“ He wasn’t really hurting her, which she took as a good sign—of course it wasn’t _pleasant_ to be dragged across the floor and have her hand pulled up so her finger could be scanned, but considering all the things he could’ve done to get the same result faster and with less resistance, he seemed to be taking some care with her.

Once the doors slid open Jeremy cast her aside, however, and started off down the hall. Quarles or whoever had been assigned to watch them was taking no chances and the lockdown siren blared to life. At this point Rachel was supposed to retreat to the safety of her office and let the guards take care of Jeremy; but she doubted it would surprise anyone when she ran after him instead—except maybe Jeremy himself, who shot a look of mild annoyance back over his shoulder.

“Jeremy, you get back here!” Rachel ordered. “I’m serious, get back here right now!” Not that she thought her words would somehow magically break through his delusion, but _when_ he came out of it, she hoped he would remember and obey faster. “Okay, well, at least wait for me, then!” she tried, jogging after him. “What are we doing? Are we going somewhere? You need to take me with you!”

This did not slow him either; he appeared to be totally ignoring her now, heading for the stairs. “Jeremy! I will tranq you if you don’t stop!” Rachel threatened. “You can’t just run around anywhere you want! Stop and get back here before I tranq you!”

The look he gave her, right before he escaped into the stairwell, was ‘yeah right.’

Gritting her teeth Rachel pulled out the tranquilizer dart, wishing she’d looked at it a little more closely before now. It seemed simple enough, though, and—keeping the needle covered for now, because accidentally tranqing herself did not need to happen today also—she took off after him.

With his speed he should have gotten away from her already; but the blast doors were sealing off the exits from the stairwell, and apparently he didn’t remember that, because he kept trying every door he saw. At least he was headed down, Rachel thought, and not up.

“Jeremy, seriously, stop,” she told him, slightly out of breath anyway. He gave her a look of annoyance as he tried to break or hack through the blast doors, as though she was some kind of pestering insect, little or no threat to him. Maybe Rachel could use that to her advantage. “Hey, you want me to open that door?” she tried. “I opened the last one, you know.” Jeremy growled at her, but when the computer panel beeped at him defiantly, he seemed to decide she might have some additional use after all and reached out to grab her.

“Hey, be careful,” Rachel warned. She put up some resistance because, well, that was her natural reaction to being grabbed. “You’re gonna feel really bad later if you hurt me.” Instead Jeremy held her tightly against him in front of the computer panel, slapping his palm on the wall beside it to focus her attention. “I know you want me to open the door,” Rachel snapped at him, stalling. “I am not stupid, you know.” He growled and gave her a little shake. “Jeremy, I am really sorry about this,” she went on, working the plastic cap off the needle, “but I hope later you’ll agree it had to be done.” And she jabbed the needle into his arm.

He reacted instantly, shoving her aside and yanking the dart from his arm before the full dose—which was only a half-dose anyway—could be injected. He narrowed his eyes at Rachel, who decided she didn’t feel at all bad about doing it. “It’s no good getting mad at me,” she warned him. She hoped somewhere nearby someone was trying to get through the blast doors into the stairwell. “What’s done is done. You’d better just sit down before you fall.”

Jeremy took a step forward and staggered slightly, his hand reaching out to clutch at the wall for support. “Just sit down, okay?” Rachel told him, trying to get under his shoulder to support his weight. He squirmed away from her, stumbling towards the stairs. “No, Jeremy, stop, don’t move—“ She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back, momentarily distracted by shouts from above her. Jeremy’s foot slipped over the top of the first stair and he pitched forward, twisting his arm out of Rachel’s grasp. Her momentum almost sent her flying anyway, but someone grabbed her from behind and she watched in sickening slow motion as Jeremy tumbled down the stairs, landing in a very still heap at the bottom.

“Jeremy!” Rachel pulled free from the guard who had saved her and sprinted down the steps. “I need EMTs with a stretcher, now!” she ordered, ignoring the chaos of shouting and thumping as guards converged on them from three directions. Jeremy’s pulse was still strong and she didn’t see any obvious breaks or scratches, but he was out cold, and that couldn’t be from the tranquilizer alone. “Come on, Jeremy,” she muttered under her breath, hoping his eyes might flutter open again.

“Dr. Ward, you need to—“ a voice behind her began sternly.

“I am sick and tired of people not doing what I f-----g tell them to do!” Rachel shouted unexpectedly, seething with frustration and worry. “If I have to call for those EMTs one. More. Time—“ She saw them coming up the stairs with the stretcher. “Thank you.” She stepped back to let them do their jobs. After a moment she glanced around at the larger scene and jumped when she realized Quarles was standing right there.

“That was you I yelled at, wasn’t it, sir?” she realized with a sigh. “Hey, look around for the needle, it should go in a Sharps container,” she added to the guards on the upper landing.

“Oh, I feel the exact same way myself sometimes,” Quarles replied to her pointedly.

“Yes, well… I _did_ use the tranquilizer dart,” Rachel reminded him. “It came in handy.”

“I confess to being shocked that you did.”

Rachel rolled her eyes, but only because her back was to him. Jeremy was carefully loaded onto the stretcher, his head in a brace to prevent movement, and the medical team started to cart him up the stairs towards the nearest door. “Well, I’ll go make sure he’s okay,” Rachel sighed, starting to slog up the stairs after them.

“After he’s back to normal,” Quarles said to her, his tone containing just a touch of sarcasm at the idea, “you should take a couple days off, Dr. Ward.”

“Funny, Jeremy made the same suggestion,” Rachel noted wearily.

“Well then.”

**

A couple hours later Rachel had ascertained that Jeremy had not been seriously injured in his fall, though he would have some more interesting bruises to add to the ones on his face. She watched him sleeping in a hospital bed from the other side of an observation window, waiting for him to wake up so she could give him another dose of the antivenom pill that was causing all this trouble. There were only two pills left; and she had gone back over the literature regarding this medicine and the venom it was supposed to bind, confirming in her mind the necessity of him continuing to take it. Sure, he could probably stop the medicine now and _live_ , but he would spend months recuperating from the resulting liver damage. Assuming nothing horrible happened to him, or anyone else, due to his delusions over the next couple of days—granted, a big assumption—he would be good to go. The cost-benefit analysis swayed Quarles, or maybe it was the graphic pictures of damaged livers she made sure to fill her report with.

A large shadow fell over her. “Hey Karl,” Rachel greeted, sipping her coffee. “Didn’t get around to calling you and Susan today, sorry. He worked out in Dennis’s gym for a while, though.”

“Susan is busy with mission research,” Karl rumbled in return. “She’s learning how to groom dogs.”

“No one ever suspects the dog groomer,” Rachel judged dryly. “Anyway, you guys have been a big help lately, so thanks.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I was hoping repetition would impress upon you my sincerity.”

“That tactic makes little sense,” Karl noted.

“Oh, there he is,” Rachel said, as Jeremy’s eyes fluttered open just in time.

Karl moved to block her from entering the hospital room. “He’ll be disoriented,” he warned. Rachel supposed he had a point and waited a few moments while Jeremy assessed the situation.

Instead of calming down, however, his heart rate started to increase, the monitor beeping frantically. “ _Dr. Ward!_ ” he called in a panic.

“He’s not supposed to do that,” Karl observed with a frown. “Don’t go in yet,” he added by way of advice.

After the last few days Rachel felt this was probably prudent. Instead she flipped the intercom switch. “Jeremy, everything’s okay. Just relax.” He looked around the room for her wildly and she tapped on the window. Then he stared in that direction, but without appearing to see her.

“Okay, so he’s hallucinating that he’s blind?” speculated Rachel. Karl deftly flipped another switch and she realized all Jeremy had been looking at was a mirror. When it turned into a clear window and he could finally see her, the heart monitor beeps started to slow somewhat. She smiled and waved at him.

“ _Am_ _I in quarantine?_ ” Jeremy wanted to know.

“No, I’m just waiting until you calm down,” Rachel assured him. “It’s been kind of a rough day.”

Jeremy sighed and leaned back against the pillows. “ _It’s time to take another pill_ ,” he realized drearily.

“Yes, it is,” Rachel agreed. “Can I come in?”

“ _Of course, Dr. Ward_.”

“I’ll bring it to him,” Karl offered. “Can it be given intravenously?”

“No. Why?” Rachel asked suspiciously.

“In case I have to knock him out.”

“ _I don’t want Karl to bring it!_ ” Jeremy insisted. “ _He has too many tentacles_.” Karl’s look at Rachel said this only proved his point.

“Thanks, Karl, but I better do it,” she decided, pushing through the door.

Jeremy sat up in bed more as she approached. “You have just the right number of tentacles, Dr. Ward,” he assured her.

“Good to know.” She handed him the pill in a cup and he knocked it back easily. She made sure to check his mouth afterward. “You’re not just pretending to take it, are you?” she asked him skeptically. “I can show you what will happen to your liver if you are.”

“No, I swallowed it.”

Rachel sat down on the edge of the bed and looked over the bruises on his face. “Yeah, rough day,” she repeated with a sigh. Jeremy’s hand curved over nothing on his chest. “Are you holding my tentacle?” Rachel asked him. Sadly, she knew no one present would understand the absurdity of that statement.

He froze. “Is that okay?”

“Go ahead,” Rachel allowed magnanimously, checking his eyes for indications of damage.

“It’s very firm,” Jeremy complimented, “and the little suckers are so soft.”

“Okay, I think that’s enough fondling of my imaginary appendage,” Rachel decided briskly, standing. Jeremy let go of, well, nothing immediately but with some disappointment. “You want to get dressed and come back to my office?”

“Okay,” he agreed readily, climbing out of bed with only a slight wince at his new injuries.

Rachel turned her back but didn’t leave the room. “You’re feeling okay?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

“No angst about your latest misadventure?”

“I didn’t hurt you, did I, Dr. Ward?” Jeremy asked her worriedly. “I think I might not have been careful…”

“You were okay,” Rachel replied, unable to put more enthusiasm into her tone. “You didn’t seem to recognize me, though.”

“You used the tranquilizer dart,” Jeremy pointed out. Rachel turned to look at him as he sounded almost happy about this. “I didn’t know if you really would.”

“Why does everyone say that,” Rachel muttered.

“I feel better, knowing you would use it,” Jeremy assured her, tying his shoes. “Did you get a new one?”

“Oh yeah.”

Jeremy took her hand and they left the hospital room. “Can we get the crayons out?” he wanted to know. “I want to draw some pictures of Karl.” This was said _just_ innocently enough that Rachel knew he was trying to irritate the other man, who fell in step behind them.

“Do you and Karl even know why you don’t like each other?” Rachel asked them both with exasperation. “Come on, it’s childish.”

“You’re holding his hand and taking him to play with crayons,” Karl deadpanned.

“Jayla Horner cuts up his food for him,” Jeremy shot back. Karl growled and Jeremy growled back.

“Stop,” Rachel told them. “Honestly. You know, Dennis told me how you both helped save him and Charlotte from a car crash.”

Karl seemed mildly surprised at this. “He did?”

“Yes. Do you remember that?” Rachel asked, suddenly not sure if he would.

“I guess,” Karl replied dismissively, as though it was barely worth the effort to recall. “ _He_ doesn’t, though,” he predicted, indicating Jeremy.

“Why is Karl following us?” Jeremy wanted to know, his tone slightly petulant. “Am I just hallucinating him? I’ll try to make him turn into a toad.” He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration and almost walked into the wall.

“Watch where you’re going, please,” Rachel requested. “Maybe Karl wants to make sure we get to my office safely.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Jeremy asked, with genuine confusion, and Rachel just sighed.

“So, Karl, what have you been up to today?” she inquired, forcing some cheer into her tone. The three of them stepped onto an elevator and Jeremy pressed himself flat against the wall as though he thought the floor was going to drop out from under them.

“I sparred with Daniel Black in the gym, then I went outside for some target practice,” Karl listed. “Then Jill White and I practiced our stalking skills in the trees. Then I went to the gym and—“

“Okay, I get it,” Rachel interrupted him, drawing the words out. “You got to do stuff Jeremy wants to do but can’t. Very mature, Karl.” He did not seem chastened.

The elevator stopped and Rachel walked off, but Jeremy stayed plastered to the wall, even when she tugged on his hand. “The ride hasn’t come to a complete stop yet,” he claimed. “We have to keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle.”

Deftly Karl slipped his hand behind Jeremy’s shoulder and flipped him off the wall like a pancake, sending him stumbling into the hallway. “I was going to _reason_ with him,” Rachel pointed out.

“This is faster,” Karl countered. Rachel couldn’t argue with that, and once Jeremy straightened up, he didn’t seem to care either way. He was too busy hopping on one foot all the way down to Rachel’s office, remaining remarkably steady.

“Well, here we are again,” she sighed, flipping the light back on. She was beginning to feel confined in the familiar room, though she supposed it was even worse for Jeremy.

“Can I build a fort?” he wanted to know.

“No.”

“Karl can help me.”

“No.”

“You can be inside it with me.”

“No.” Rachel handed him the crayons and some paper. “Draw me a picture of your fort.”

Jeremy frowned. “That’s not as good as really building one.”

“You’ll have to learn to live with it,” Rachel told him philosophically. “Share with Karl if he wants to draw.”

Jeremy’s eyes narrowed at the other man. “Karl might eat the crayons.”

“I was about to say the same thing about _you_ ,” Karl rumbled.

“Boys,” Rachel admonished, feeling like a schoolmarm glaring at them over the top of her computer. “Play nicely or I’ll take the crayons away.”

“She will, too,” Jeremy advised Karl, and they both settled down at the coffee table.

Rachel was working on her report about the latest incident for the day and appreciated the silence, even if it was somewhat suspicious. But as before, drawing seemed to help ground Jeremy and even if he occasionally glanced around with confusion, he quickly came back to his crayons and paper. Karl seemed to enjoy the activity as well, even if he kept an eye on Jeremy every time he tensed up.

Jeremy started to hum, then sing. “Kodachrome, they give us the nice bright colors, they give us the greens of summer, make ya think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah.” Then he stopped abruptly and looked around.

“You can keep singing,” Rachel encouraged. He seemed unwillingly. “Maybe Karl would like to sing,” she said teasingly. “I know Karl’s a good singer, too.”

“This room lacks the proper acoustics,” Karl claimed.

“So what are you guys drawing?” Rachel wanted to know, taking the opportunity for a break. She strolled over to the table. “More comic strips?”

“You told me to draw a fort,” Jeremy said defensively, staring at her.

“Hey, whatever you want,” Rachel assured him quickly.

“Well, you told me to draw a fort, so I drew a fort,” he asserted, sounding slightly grumpy, as though he now considered the time wasted.

Rachel knelt down at the table and tried to affect a patient, non-threatening demeanor. “Well, can I _see_ your fort?”

“I _hope_ you want to see it,” he muttered, pushing a piece of paper at her, “because you _told_ me to draw it.” Ignoring his petulant tone Rachel took the paper, examining his detailed front and side elevations for his fort, which resembled a traditional wooden stockade.

“Those are nice flags,” she commented, indicating the pennants fluttering above the gun turrets. “What’s the symbol on them?”

“An orange.” Of course.

“Is this a drawbridge?” she asked, trying to engage him.

“Yes, the entire fort is surrounded by a moat of maple syrup,” Jeremy informed her, “so the only way in is across the drawbridge.”

“Someone could parachute in,” Karl pointed out contrarily.

“The gun turrets turn three hundred sixty degrees and can be raised sixty degrees,” Jeremy countered.

“A maple syrup moat, huh,” Rachel commented quickly, trying to redirect them. “That certainly sounds unpleasant.”

“Not lethal, though,” Karl claimed.

“There are alligators in it,” Jeremy insisted. “And tigers. And electricity.”

“Okay then,” Rachel agreed. “Boy, you’ve thought of everything, huh?”

“Here’s the interior,” Jeremy went on eagerly, showing her another piece of paper that was more like a series of floorplans. “Here’s the cafeteria and the gym and the library and the kennels, and here’s my room and here’s your room, Dr. Ward. See, I put it next to the coffee machine.”

“Aw, thanks, Jeremy,” Rachel told him.

“And here’s Susan’s room, and some other rooms for guests.” His eyes slid over to Karl. “And here’s the underground detention rooms with the torture apparatuses. And here’s an oubliette, which is a pit where you can dump people and forget about them. It’s French.”

“Brownie for me,” Rachel sighed. “What have you been working on, Karl?” She turned his drawing around and gazed at it. “Ah, it’s one of those old-fashioned record players. And a kitten. And a machine gun,” she noted. “Very artfully done.”

“It’s a still life,” Karl explained modestly. “I was going to add a peacock feather.”

“That would overbalance the composition,” Jeremy judged. “But I think I will add peacock feathers to my moat. Do you think that would be an effective deterrent, Dr. Ward?”

“Well, _I_ sure wouldn’t want to fall into a moat of maple syrup and peacock feathers,” Rachel told him truthfully.

“Don’t forget the tigers,” Karl deadpanned.

“You should draw something, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy insisted, pushing the paper and crayons at her.

“Well, okay,” Rachel agreed. It could be fun, she hadn’t played with crayons in a long time.

Jeremy leaned forward eagerly on the table. “What are you going to draw?” he wanted to know.

Rachel thought for a moment, then selected the brown crayon and began to draw a large structure. “It’s a pirate ship!” she announced with some enthusiasm, switching in new colors as necessary. “With a big sail. And here’s the plank that people have to walk. And here’s the captain with his sword, ready to take over another ship for the treasure! Here, I’ll draw one in the background that they’re sailing for. Arrgh! Avast!” She glanced up at Jeremy and Karl and her smile faded as she saw them staring at her dubiously. “What?”

“That’s awfully violent,” Karl judged.

Rachel gaped at him, all too certain that he wasn’t joking. “You drew a machine gun!” she sputtered.

“It’s not doing anything,” Karl pointed out. “It’s just sitting there. It’s _still_.”

“It’s a very peaceful machine gun,” Jeremy supported. “The safety’s still on.”

“That’s so the kitten won’t accidentally discharge it,” Karl noted.

“Safety first,” Jeremy agreed. “Kittens can be very curious.”

“You drew a torture chamber,” Rachel accused peevishly.

“It doubles as a morning kitchen with a juice bar,” Jeremy insisted.

“And it’s right next to the spa,” Karl observed.

“What about the moat filled with maple syrup and tigers?” Rachel demanded.

“Well _clearly_ I need a defense against marauding bands of pirates.”

“I like maple syrup,” Karl added.

Rachel threw down her crayon in disgust. “Fine, whatever.”

“I think this activity is too upsetting for Dr. Ward,” Jeremy commented to Karl in a low voice.

“Obviously,” he agreed.

Jeremy gave some thought to alternatives. “Let’s play hide and seek,” he suggested, with some excitement.

“No way,” Rachel vetoed, standing. “I’m going back to my paperwork.” Since they didn’t like her pirate ship.

“Well, Karl and I can play.”

“You can’t leave the outer office,” Rachel warned him.

A crafty look came into his eye, which boded nothing good. “I can still find places to hide.”

“You can’t get into the ventilation or ceiling ducts, either.”

His expression fell slightly but he tried to rally. “Oh. Well, I can still find places to hide.”

Rachel shrugged, not expecting this to last long. “Okay, whatever.” She went back to her desk, taking her pirate ship with her.

“Okay, you go in the bathroom and count to one hundred,” Jeremy instructed Karl, “and I’ll hide.” Karl seemed amenable enough.

“If you leave the office I will hunt you down!” Rachel warned one more time.

“I know!” Jeremy insisted, disappearing into the exam room.

Curious, Rachel followed and caught him crawling on top of a cabinet. “And don’t make a mess,” she added. Jeremy waved his hands to shush her and she went back to her desk, shaking her head. Clearly logic and common sense were too much to ask of people whose minds combined kittens and machine guns, or came up with moats of maple syrup and tigers; she decided she should just try to be glad they weren’t unhappy.

Karl finished counting and came out to look for Jeremy. He found him eventually, but it took long enough that Jeremy felt triumphant. Then Karl was sent off to the bathroom to count again.

“Don’t you get to hide, Karl?” Rachel checked.

“No,” he confirmed flatly, not slowing his path. “But that’s okay.”

“Thanks for your tolerance,” she told him as he disappeared behind the closed door.

Jeremy trotted in. “Can I hide under your desk?” he whispered to Rachel.

“Mmm… no,” she decided, not wanting to get so involved. This was _their_ game, she was just supervising. Jeremy gave her a disappointed look and hurried away to hide somewhere else.

The pattern continued for several rounds. Then Rachel noticed that Karl had come into her inner office three times to gaze around searchingly. “Something wrong?” she asked.

“Can I look under your desk?” he responded.

“He’s not under my desk.” Karl gazed at her and Rachel realized she should not have expected him to take her word for it. With a sigh she got up out of the way and Karl thoroughly inspected the underside of the desk. Then he went away to another room.

Then he came back. “I can’t find him,” he was forced to admit.

Rachel was unimpressed. “It’s three rooms, Karl.”

“Jeremy is usually the winner of the concealment portion of our annual survival retraining,” Karl informed her.

Rachel made a noise of exasperation and got up. “What? That’s great. Why didn’t you tell me?” She started looking all around the exam room.

“It wasn’t relevant at the time,” Karl claimed. “I already looked in there,” he added as she opened a cabinet.

Rachel surged into the outer office. “G-d, I hope he hasn’t gotten out,” she worried. “Sorry, Director, they were just playing hide and seek, what possible harm could’ve come of that?”

“Who are you addressing?” Karl wanted to know.

Rachel ignored that. “Jeremy, time to come out!” she called with forced cheer. “Karl says you win, he’s totally stumped. Come out now!” Nothing, and now the sinking feeling really began to manifest itself in Rachel’s stomach. “Check the door and make sure he didn’t get out that way,” she ordered Karl, going to examine one of the air vents.

“He didn’t,” Karl reported.

Then Rachel noticed that there were a number of file folders neatly arranged on a shelf behind Jenny’s desk, a shelf she would’ve sworn was normally empty. “That’s weird, I usually keep those in the—“ Bottom drawer of the extra-wide filing cabinet against the wall. “But surely he couldn’t—“ She tugged on the drawer but couldn’t move it. “Karl.” The agent opened the drawer easily, revealing Jeremy somehow, impossibly, curled up inside.

“Oh, you found me,” he said, disappointed.

“Ugh, get out of there,” Rachel told him. “I don’t want to think about what you’re doing to your joints.”

“Good job, Dr. Ward,” Karl complimented her. She was not able to fully appreciate the slight awe in his voice. “I didn’t notice the files were out of place.”

“Jeremy,” she prompted. There was no point in chiding him for not answering earlier, she felt.

He wiggled slightly, rattling the drawer. “I can get out,” he insisted when Rachel made a noise.

“Karl,” Rachel directed again. Then she turned away, because she really didn’t want to see the contortions necessary for Jeremy to be disgorged. When she looked back he was out and stretching. “Well, I think that’s enough hide and seek for the day,” she judged, checking her watch.

“You have to go soon,” Jeremy predicted, sadly.

“Well, not _very_ soon,” Rachel assured him reflexively. She hated to see that hangdog expression on his face, even if he’d been exasperating her lately. “Um, maybe we could…” She trailed off as she tried to come up with a new idea.

“Can we have dinner before you go?” Jeremy proposed. “I haven’t consumed enough calories today.”

Rachel figured that was probably true; it seemed like whenever he went to the cafeteria he got over-stimulated and flipped out. “Sure, yeah, let’s eat dinner first,” she agreed. “We’ll eat here. I have someone bring us food.”

“I’ll go get it,” Karl volunteered.

“Aw, thanks, Karl,” Rachel told him. Jeremy gave him a suspicious look instead. Then Karl left, without asking what they wanted. Which neatly solved the problem of Rachel having to decide, anyway.

“What should we do until Karl gets back?” Jeremy wanted to know.

Rachel pulled out the chair at Jenny’s desk and sat down. “I think you should do something funny to entertain me,” she declared grandly. She could always retract that request if it upset him; but she was rather curious about what he would come up with if he tried. And she was flat out of new ideas herself.

Jeremy’s expression said he was determined to rise to the challenge. “I could juggle,” he suggested.

“Okay,” Rachel agreed. “Let’s see it then.” She tried to sound like she thought he wouldn’t be able to pull it off; but in reality, with his enhanced hand-eye coordination, it would probably go rather well.

Jeremy started to juggle. Or rather, he moved his hands like he was juggling something and watched it closely, moving around slightly as if adjusting himself—but there was nothing there.

For some reason—giddiness after a long and stressful day, probably—Rachel found this rather funny. Which was, after all, the point. “What are you juggling?” she asked with a smirk.

“Hamsters.”

“Ohhhh.”

“They’re invisible,” Jeremy added, and Rachel started to laugh. He didn’t seem to mind. “That makes them very difficult to juggle,” he claimed, “because I can’t see them.” Rachel nodded. “I can feel them, of course, when I catch one,” Jeremy went on, slightly distracted by his activity, “and I can hear them squeaking. And smell them,” he added, wrinkling his nose unpleasantly.

Rachel laughed more. “Do hamsters _like_ being juggled?” she wanted to know. “Are you being mean to the poor hamsters?”

Jeremy gave her a reproachful look, as though he would never do such a thing, and nearly missed catching one. “They _like_ being juggled, they’re specially trained,” he insisted as she chuckled. “They don’t like being dropped, though,” he admitted darkly.

It was probably wrong to laugh at that idea, which made Rachel laugh even harder. “Oh, if you dropped the invisible hamster, you would probably bring it to me,” she predicted, barely able to get the words out, “and then I’d be trying to do surgery on an invisible hamster!”

Jeremy caught all the hamsters and cradled them in his hands while giving her a disapproving look that only served to amuse her further. “You’re hurting the invisible hamsters’ feelings by laughing at them,” he tried to tell her. He wasn’t exactly joking, but neither was he serious, she judged. Then suddenly he jerked as though grabbing for something and his face took on an alarmed expression.

“Did you drop one?” Rachel chortled.

“Well, er, he got away,” Jeremy claimed. “But I think he’s okay, he ran away pretty fast.”

Rachel tried to be serious. “Are you saying we have an _invisible hamster_ loose in the room?” she demanded, before cracking up again.

“Um, well, I’m sure we’ll find him,” Jeremy said optimistically. He appeared to stuff the remaining hamsters into his pants pockets before getting down on the floor to look under the desk.

“You know what we need to find an invisible hamster?” Rachel suggested blithely. “An invisible cat!”

“I don’t think the cat has to be invisible,” Jeremy countered rationally. “Just a regular cat would do.” He crawled over to look under the couch.

“Aw, Jeremy, why don’t you turn into a tiger and find the invisible hamster?” Rachel cajoled.

“I have told you, Dr. Ward,” he reminded her patiently as he lifted the couch cushions, “it doesn’t work that way. I can’t just do it on command.”

“But we really _need_ a tiger now, Jeremy,” Rachel claimed. “We need a tiger-hero to rise and save us. Er, the hamster.”

“I think you’re not taking this seriously,” he observed soberly.

Rachel froze suddenly. “Was I supposed to?”

Jeremy held his solemn expression a moment longer, then relaxed. “No.” Rachel laughed even harder, impressed that he could joke with her. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, hold still, Dr. Ward!” he told her, approaching cautiously. “Stop giggling, he’ll fall off.”

“Is he on my head?” Rachel guessed. “Is there an invisible hamster on my head?”

“Didn’t you feel him crawling up your arm?” Jeremy asked.

“Ew, creepy. Get him, Jeremy!” Jeremy lunged, carefully, managing to brush Rachel’s hair, shoulder, arm, and finally leg before finally capturing the errant hamster. With a sigh of relief he plopped down on the floor between Rachel’s feet. “Good job!” she praised, ruffling his hair. Then he tipped his head back, opened his mouth, and dropped the invisible hamster in. “Gross! Jeremy!”

“I’m pretty hungry,” he deadpanned.

She laughed anyway and leaned down to hug him. He hadn’t gotten a hug in a while and seemed to appreciate it, squeezing her arms before letting her go. “You are pretty funny,” she allowed.

“Did I entertain you suitably?” he wanted to know.

“Yes,” Rachel decided. “You could go undercover as… er, a funny person sometime. I would write you a letter of recommendation.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Where is Karl?” Rachel bemoaned after a silent moment. “Is he killing a cow to make my hamburger that I didn’t get a chance to ask for?”

“Probably,” Jeremy judged. He scooted around so he could gaze up at Rachel while still leaning on her leg. “Once he had to go undercover as a chef,” he reported, “and he was very opinionated with the kitchen staff during his mission research.”

“The Swedish Chef?” Rachel cracked, attempting to mimic the Muppet character. Jeremy blinked at her. “Because Karl is kind of Nordic-looking…? Never mind.”

“Okay,” Jeremy agreed. “Once I was undercover as someone who cooked, too, but he wasn’t supposed to be a very _good_ cook. And mainly he was a police detective in a major metropolitan area, so I focused more on studying that.”

“Wise,” Rachel judged. “What’s your favorite undercover role? Without telling me anything classified.”

Jeremy gave this some thought. “Well, that was a pretty good one,” he decided.

“The police detective?”

He nodded. “Because he was a nice person who helped people. Lots of times I go undercover as people who aren’t very nice.”

“Didn’t you tell me you were undercover as a priest once, or something?” Rachel reminded him. That was only at lunch today, but seemed much farther in the past to her. “Was he not nice and helpful?”

“Well, I like carrying a gun, too,” Jeremy admitted, “and chasing people.”

“Not as much call to do that as a priest,” Rachel allowed.

“More than you might think,” Jeremy hinted. “What’s your favorite job you’ve ever had? Aside from this one, of course,” he excluded generously. When Rachel hesitated to answer, he added helpfully, “Would you like me to list your employment history for you?”

“No, nosy,” she assured him, ruffling his hair again. “I was just _thinking_. Not all of us think as fast as you.”

“Oh.”

“Hmm, well… When I was in junior high, my dad was stationed in Kentucky,” Rachel began, “and during the summer my sister and I helped out at this petting zoo.”

Jeremy frowned. “This is not on your résumé,” he complained.

“No, I didn’t think it was professionally relevant,” she noted dryly. “Anyway, we worked in the goat section, and we had to feed and water the goats, and make sure they were clean and healthy, and when they were out we had to stop them from chewing on the visitors’ clothes.”

“I think this sounds very professionally relevant,” Jeremy claimed, and Rachel laughed.

“Well, it was fun to work with the animals and the little kids who came to see them,” she went on. “There were some gross parts but I didn’t really mind. Eliza quit after a month,” she added, rolling her eyes. “I guess it was not the most _momentous_ job I ever had,” she admitted when Jeremy said nothing, “but I remember it as being fun with little down side, or maybe I just didn’t recognize it because I was only a kid…”

Jeremy seemed to be contemplating this story deeply. “I have little experience with goats,” he finally said, as though he was now determined to rectify this deficiency.

“Well, don’t start thinking you _are_ a goat,” Rachel advised. “I don’t want you chewing on my clothes!”

The door opened and Karl returned bearing a tray of cardboard boxes before Jeremy could reply. “Karl! Finally!” Rachel enthused. “Jeremy was reduced to eating invisible hamsters to survive.”

Karl ignored this comment and set his tray down on Jenny’s desk. “The food had to be transferred to containers suitable for travel,” he claimed, handing one of the boxes to Rachel. Jeremy reached up for one from the floor and Karl deliberately placed it on the desk instead, forcing him to get up on his knees.

“Oh, a hamburger, great! And a brownie!” Rachel praised, opening her box. “Thanks, Karl, how did you know I wanted one?”

“Observation and historical analysis,” said Karl flatly.

“Can I sit on the floor?” Jeremy asked Rachel.

“Yes.” Then she glanced around Jenny’s immaculate desk and decided to move herself. “I’m gonna go sit on the couch, though.” Jeremy scooted across the floor to follow her.

“Where should _I_ sit?” Karl asked her, since this was apparently not a simple decision.

“I think there’s space in the other room,” Jeremy suggested innocently. Rachel shushed him.

“You can stay at the desk if you want,” she allowed. “You’re not very messy when you eat.” As she spoke she dripped a glob of ketchup onto her napkin.

“I brought you extras,” Karl assured her, indicating a small pile on the tray.

“Thanks.” Rachel glanced over to see what Jeremy had been given. “Oh, you got a hamburger, too,” she noted. “How did you know Jeremy wanted a hamburger, too, Karl?” She nudged Jeremy with her foot, trying to get him to thank Karl for the food.

“He would want what _you_ have,” Karl judged, with a slight sneer. Jeremy made a face at him.

“Um, anything interesting happening out there, Karl?” Rachel redirected quickly. “Like, in the cafeteria, or…?”

Karl looked at her and for a moment Rachel thought he was just going to be literal and make her feel silly again. “I got a new mission,” he said instead.

“Really? When?”

“On my way down to the cafeteria,” he revealed. “The Supervisor said I should meet her for a briefing tomorrow morning.”

Rachel tensed. “Wollstonecraft is here?” she said. She didn’t like the idea of running into the intimidating woman somewhere in the halls, especially when Jeremy still owed her information.

“It was a text message,” Karl clarified, and Rachel relaxed.

“Oh. Well, congrats, Karl,” she told him. “Hopefully it’s more exciting than Susan learning to be a dog groomer. Er, if you don’t consider that to be exciting,” she added quickly.

“Dr. Ward, my face hurts,” Jeremy complained suddenly, and she looked down at him.

“Yeah, it’s still a little swollen and discolored,” she agreed, “although it’s healed remarkably fast, seeing as how it only happened a few hours ago.”

“ _What_ happened?” Jeremy asked, more to the point. “Did I get into a fight with Karl?”

“You would have a lot more bruises in that case,” Karl stated.

“No, you ran smack into my office door out there,” Rachel reminded him. “And later you fell down the stairs. Don’t you remember that?”

“Those are the _least_ interesting versions of what happened that I remember,” Jeremy admitted in disappointment. “I thought maybe the giant squid had really been involved, at least.”

“You mentioned a giant squid before, buddy,” Rachel pointed out. “What’s the story there?”

Karl cleared his throat, as though this was something Jeremy wasn’t supposed to talk about (improbable as that seemed), but Jeremy plunged ahead eagerly anyway. “Well, these giant squid aliens come to Earth and everyone is afraid of them at first and thinks they’re here to destroy us,” he explained to Rachel, “but then finally we figure out that they’re actually wise and peaceful and quite good athletes.”

“Uh-huh,” Rachel nodded. “So there’s some adventure at the beginning when we still think they’re bad, when you might’ve been injured.”

“Right,” he agreed.

“Definitely more interesting than walking into a door,” she admitted.

“And _then_ ,” he went on with some enthusiasm, “they surgically altered some humans to have tentacles like they do!”

And somehow, this actually did clarify things for Rachel. “Oh, _that’s_ where the tentacles came from,” she realized.

“It all makes sense together, Dr. Ward,” Karl deadpanned.

Jeremy gave him a look. “Karl was one of the first volunteers and he got _too many_ tentacles,” he judged. “But they got it just right with you, Dr. Ward.”

“I don’t know, Jeremy, I don’t really want tentacles at all,” Rachel told him. “That doesn’t really sound very nice of them.”

“But the tentacles make you smarter and stronger, and you heal faster,” Jeremy insisted. Rachel raised an eyebrow, wondering if they were still talking about the tentacles. “Plus, you volunteered. Don’t you remember that?” He seemed very worried about this and his hand twitched over the couch cushion beside Rachel.

“Are you holding my tentacle again?” she asked him severely, and he put his hand back in his lap.

“Sorry. It’s nice.”

“I just think it’s more polite to ask first, is all,” Rachel chided him. She was teasing, but it was hard to tell how seriously he was taking this conversation.

“Some people do find them unpleasantly moist,” Jeremy commented, as if he were agreeing with her.

Rachel nodded slowly. “Karl, any chance that this is the plot of a training video game?” she asked hopefully.

“Perhaps one of the remedial ones,” he offered.

“I didn’t even know you guys _had_ video games for training,” Rachel went on, trying to change the subject slightly. “How come you never talk about them?”

Both Jeremy and Karl were unnervingly silent. Then Karl replied, “They’re classified,” in a pointed tone directed at Jeremy.

“There’s one about elves trying to escape the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,” Jeremy claimed nonchalantly and Karl shook his head slightly. Rachel honestly couldn’t tell if this was some delusion of Jeremy’s, the bizarre truth, or if the two of them were just messing with her.

“That must be very professionally relevant,” she commented dryly, thinking of her goat tending duties.

“I find it so.”

Rachel finished her dinner and set the box aside, still picking at a few French fries. At least she wouldn’t have to scrounge for dinner when she got home. Jeremy seemed to realize this meant she would soon be leaving and became more subdued.

“So… big week tomorrow,” Rachel announced, trying to sound upbeat. “New missions for Susan and Karl. What skill would you like to learn for a mission, Karl, that you don’t know?”

He gave this some thought. “Viking chain knitting.”

“Trichinopoly?” Jeremy asked curiously. “You don’t know how to do that?”

“I was in the kumihimo group,” Karl replied.

“What the h—l are you talking about?” Rachel wanted to know. “Is this some kind of… sword-fighting technique?”

“Jewelry-making,” Karl corrected.

Rachel blinked at him. “Were you guys undercover as… craft-fair assassins?” she guessed dubiously.

“Classified,” they both said at the same time, and Rachel rolled her eyes.

“Are you done eating?” she asked Jeremy, who appeared to be tearing a fringe into his box and shedding cardboard all over the floor. “Throw that away and go wash up. You’ve got ketchup all over your face.” With a sigh Jeremy stood and wandered into the other room. “One more pill to go,” Rachel commented to Karl. “By Wednesday he should be back to normal.”

“What’s normal,” Karl replied philosophically.

After a moment Jeremy returned. “Hey, you’ve still got ketchup on your face,” Rachel pointed out in surprise. It didn’t look like he’d washed any off at all.

Jeremy’s expression suggested he’d forgotten that was his order. “Should I use the sink in the exam room or the bathroom?”

“Either one.” This was not a helpful answer. “The bathroom,” Rachel decided for him. He left again. “These memory problems bother me,” she confided to Karl, because he was there.

“He says he remembers _too much_ ,” Karl pointed out astutely, “and isn’t sure which one really happened.”

“Which, functionally, means he can’t link events together, or consequences with actions,” Rachel went on. “I mean, one minute we’re on the run from rampaging zombies, and the next minute he doesn’t understand why everyone is jumpy around him and won’t let him wander around.”

“Imagination indicates resourcefulness and problem-solving skills,” Karl responded vaguely. Rachel decided that might be meant as an oblique compliment towards Jeremy.

Jeremy came back into the room after a moment, and once again—“You didn’t wash your face,” Rachel pointed out, trying not to give free rein to her exasperation.

“Oh. Was I supposed to do that?” Jeremy asked in confusion.

“What have you been doing in there,” Rachel asked, “if not washing your face?”

He hesitated to answer. “Well, I—“ Rachel decided to go see for herself and stood. “Sorry, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy muttered, clearly feeling inadequate.

“It’s okay,” Rachel told him and held out her hand, which he took. “Come on.” Much to her relief she did not notice anything amiss in the other rooms, having imagined that he’d rebuilt his fort or made a trail of shredded cardboard across the floor something like that. She pushed him into the bathroom. “Wash. Your. Face.” She took an extra glance around while she waited. “Do you see anything out of place, Karl?” she asked suspiciously. He merely shrugged. “Why don’t I hear water running?” she called in the direction of the bathroom.

“I’m not certain this water is potable,” Jeremy replied dubiously.

“You don’t have to drink it, just wash your face with it,” Rachel reminded him. “Honestly, just look in the mirror, you look like you’ve just come from a massacre.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t give him ideas,” Karl advised.

“S—t, you’re right,” Rachel realized. She knocked on the partially-closed bathroom door and stuck her head in to see Jeremy… efficiently washing the ketchup from his face. “You okay?” she asked warily.

“Yes, Dr. Ward,” he replied, a bit coldly. “I’ll be finished in under two minutes.”

“Okay.” Rachel started to leave, then leaned back in. “You know there was no massacre, right? That was just a figure of speech.”

Jeremy turned to gaze at her, and for a second Rachel thought he was going to tell her, of _course_ , that was obvious. Then his tongue snaked out of his mouth and tasted some of the remaining ketchup, and he relaxed visibly. Rachel raised an eyebrow. “It’s ketchup,” he reported.

“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “Sorry.” She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know this, but—“Were you thinking there had really been a…?” She broke off when she saw his sideways glance. “Yeah, okay. Just ketchup.” She left him alone to clean up and tried not to think about it anymore.

After a moment he emerged into her office, face finally clean. “There you go, thank you,” Rachel encouraged him.

“You missed some,” Karl responded. “On your left ear.” Jeremy hurried to remedy this.

“How did you get ketchup on your _ear_ , that’s what I want to know,” Rachel commented idly.

“The hamburger kept trying to get away from me,” Jeremy claimed.

“Karl, next time get them well done,” Rachel quipped. “Okay,” she went on when Jeremy returned from the bathroom, yet again. She took a breath, knowing what she was about to say would not be popular. “I think it’s time for me to go home,” she stated. “So I need to put you in your room for the night.”

“Okay,” Jeremy replied in a normal tone.

“Okay?” Rachel repeated dubiously.

“I understand,” he went on reasonably. “I have to stay in my room all night, until you come in the morning.”

“That’s right,” Rachel agreed, still slightly suspicious of his amenable demeanor. “Alright, let’s go.” She held out her hand and he took it obediently. Rachel shrugged and decided to take whatever she could get. “Downstairs we go.”

They made it partway down the hall towards the elevator when Jeremy stopped suddenly. “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked apprehensively.

“We have to look both ways before we cross the street,” Jeremy told her firmly. “Step back on the curb, please,” he added, indicating a line of tiles on the floor. His tone was, for lack of a better term, very teacher-like. Rachel stepped back as she was told, hiding a smirk.

Carefully Jeremy leaned forward and looked both ways across the hall. “Good, there aren’t any cars coming,” he noted instructively. Then he held out his free hand to Karl, who just stared at it. Rachel now had to cover her smirk with her own hand. “Karl,” Jeremy prompted.

“What,” Karl replied, his tone not very accommodating.

“Take my hand, Karl,” Jeremy told him. “We have to hold hands when we cross the street.” Rachel let a little giggle escape and Jeremy gave her a chiding look; she half-expected him to call her ‘young lady.’ Then he turned back to the other troublemaker. “Karl,” he said sternly.

With a huge sigh Karl acquiesced and held Jeremy’s hand as they continued down the hall. Apparently it was a very wide street, as Jeremy required this safety precaution until they reached the elevator. The moment he started to look confused, though, Karl twisted his hand away. “Boys,” Rachel said in mock disgust. “Always afraid of getting cooties or something.”

“There was no street to cross,” Karl protested, mildly defensive. “And we’re not easily-distracted juveniles.” He gave Jeremy a disdainful look as if to say, well, _most_ of us. Then he put his hands in his pockets while Rachel snickered at him. Jeremy looked between the two of them with bewildered resignation.

“ _We_ can still hold hands, can’t we, Dr. Ward?” he checked.

“Yes, absolutely,” Rachel agreed, leading them onto the elevator. “Even if Karl is going to be a big sissypants about it.” Karl chose not to dignify this with a response. “So do you have something in your room to eat?” Rachel asked Jeremy as the elevator descended. “Stuff to read?” He was already locked in, she didn’t want it to be more torturous than necessary.

“I plan to exercise,” he told her, answering her unspoken question instead of her literal one. Nice to know he could do that sometimes.

“Okay,” Rachel agreed, feeling better that he’d decided on something to do to pass the time on his own. “Get enough sleep, though.”

“I thought I could try some puzzles,” Jeremy went on. “Like crosswords or Sudoku. Or perhaps logic problems.”

Rachel liked that he was thinking ahead. “That’s a good idea,” she encouraged. “Do you have some in your room?”

“On the computer.”

She nodded. “Those sound like really good—“ His posture started to change and she let go of his hand as he dropped to all fours in the elevator. “Oh boy, here we go again,” she remarked, rubbing his back as he leaned against her. “Are you a tiger again? Or a wolf?”

Jeremy shook his head, not necessarily in response to her question, more like he was tossing his hair out of the way. “Are you a horse?” Rachel guessed. “A very _small_ horse,” she added dryly as he nuzzled her hand.

Karl poked at him and Jeremy promptly tried to bite him. “He’s a pony,” Karl judged distastefully.

“Aw, My Little Pony Jeremy,” Rachel cooed, petting him. “Gee, I wish I had a carrot to feed you.”

“Ponies are mean,” Karl reminded her suspiciously. In response Jeremy leaned his hand on Karl’s foot, which was probably supposed to represent being stomped on by a pony but was actually much less damaging. “See?” Karl pointed out to Rachel.

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Karl, there’s no need to be paranoid,” she told him. “He’s a pony in an elevator, he doesn’t have much room.” The elevator stopped and opened onto a cluttered basement storage area. “Are we in the right place?” Rachel asked in confusion, following Karl off. Jeremy trotted along beside her.

“Yes.”

“You realize I have no idea where we are,” Rachel noted, “and I’m trusting you to take us to the resident zone.”

“Yes.” Karl’s tone was not exactly reassuring.

Rachel pulled off to the side and sat down on a storage crate. “C’mere, My Little Pony,” she told Jeremy, drawing him closer. Karl frowned at her delay. “Well, I don’t want him crawling around down here,” she explained. “He’ll snap out of it in a minute and then we can go on.” Jeremy stayed docilely at her side as she stroked his hair. “At least he’s not a growling carnivore this time,” she commented. “Ooh, hey, Jeremy? What’s two”—she held up two fingers in front of him—“plus two?” She flashed the fingers again.

Jeremy swiped his hand across the floor four times and Rachel laughed.

“Good job!” she praised. “You’re just like a—“ She was about to say ‘circus pony’ but thought better of it. “—a pony at the county fair!” She saw Karl’s disdainful look. “Oh, lighten up, we’re just having some fun. Making the best of it.”

“He should be confined,” Karl judged.

“Oh, just because you don’t like ponies,” Rachel dismissed. Then she thought about the rest of the very long day. “Yeah, sometimes I don’t know,” she sighed. “Hey, only a couple more days to go, right?”

“Unless there are lingering effects,” Karl predicted direly.

Jeremy’s posture started to change and he looked around in confusion. “Was I about to crawl into something?” he guessed.

“This crate would be fine,” Karl replied innocently, indicating one. Jeremy did not fall for this, however.

“You were a pony!” Rachel explained, with exaggerated enthusiasm. “You were a clever little pony who could do math.”

Jeremy blinked at her. “Did I bite Karl?” he wanted to know. “The ponies told me they didn’t like Karl.”

Now Rachel wasn’t sure if he was being silly or serious. She patted his head and stood, and Jeremy popped up beside her and took her hand. “Well, onto your room,” she prompted. “Or stable, if you prefer.”

They continued on down the hallway, or rather, through the path among the crates and pieces of equipment. “Jeremy, are we in the right place?” Rachel asked. “Um… sorry, Karl.” He didn’t seem offended by her lack of faith.

“That’s a very profound question, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy responded philosophically. “What _is_ the right place?”

Rachel rolled her eyes, supposing it was her own fault for not being specific enough. “Are we on a path that leads to your room?” she tried to clarify. “Is this an efficient way to get there?”

“We’re avoiding the main hallways,” Karl said abruptly, and then Rachel understood.

“Oh.” He could’ve _explained_ that, she thought. “Well, good idea.” Even if there weren’t _many_ people around right now, it was better to travel where there were none at all.

“What was the question?” Jeremy asked in confusion.

“Never mind,” Rachel assured him. He nodded.

“Can I sing here?” he wanted to know.

“Sure, go ahead,” she allowed, always pleased to hear him sing (well, usually).

“If you take all the girls I knew when I was single,” he began, and Rachel looked slightly askance at him for his choice, “and put them all together for one night, they could never match my sweet imagination. Everything looks worse in black and white.” Rachel expected him to then burst into the chorus of the song, but he didn’t. “What does that verse mean?” he asked her.

“What do you mean?” she rejoined, not wanting to get into a discussion that was remotely sexual.

“How can you put all the girls he knew together?” Jeremy specified. “Together in the same room?”

“You could use a blender,” Karl pointed out. Rachel made a noise of disgust.

“It would have to be a large blender,” Jeremy countered. “A vat of acid would work better.”

“Ew, guys, gross!” Rachel protested more forcefully. “Brownie for me. It’s just figurative.”

“Oh. I thought you really ate a brownie,” Jeremy admitted.

“I _brought_ you a brownie,” Karl pointed out. “Which you ate.”

“The _brownie_ is very real,” Rachel stressed, because apparently this was unclear. “The _song_ is figurative.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a weird song,” Karl judged, as if Rachel had written it. She tried to be glad he and Jeremy were in accord about something, at least.

“Dr. Ward,” Jeremy began, moving on to a new topic, “can we play hide and seek down here?”

“Definitely not,” Rachel decided firmly. It was not a difficult decision.

He swung their clasped hands back and forth aimlessly. “Why not?”

“What if you were hiding, and you forgot what was going on, and you got scared?” Rachel proposed. “Or you didn’t realize you were supposed to come out, and you stayed hidden for a long time? Or you wandered off when we couldn’t see you, and started to think that rage zombies or giant mutant rabbits or whatever were after you?”

Jeremy was quiet for a long moment. “Next time you can just say, ‘Because I said so,’” he suggested delicately.

“Oh. Okay.”

They reached the door to the resident zone, guarded by Eduardo again. “Are you still sick, Jeremy?” he asked with concern as they passed through the checkpoint.

“I’m sick?” Jeremy repeated, with some alarm. He felt his own forehead and cheek for fever. “What am I sick with?”

“Yes,” Rachel told the guard, tugging Jeremy along.

“Is that why I was in the hospital wing?” Jeremy persisted. He dragged his feet slightly. “Is Karl sick, too? Are we going to quarantine? I don’t want to be quarantined with Karl. Why am I sick?”

“You’re getting an upgrade,” Karl claimed, pushing him along towards his room. “You’ll be able to fly.”

Jeremy looked quite interested in this. “Karl,” Rachel chided. “ _You’re_ the one who told me not to give him ideas.” Karl shrugged unapologetically. “Come on, Jeremy, you’re not contagious,” she coaxed. “You’re just having a bad reaction to some medicine. You’ll be fine in a couple days.”

“Maybe,” Karl discouraged.

“Do you remember me explaining this to you before?” Rachel went on, guiding him towards his room.

“I’m not sure,” he hedged. “Did you explain it in sign language, using tentacles?”

Rachel gave him a look. “Okay, after you’re better, we’re going to have a long talk about your fixation with tentacles,” she muttered.

“Dr. Zhu should be present for that,” Karl suggested unhelpfully.

“Karl,” Rachel warned, as Jeremy’s eyes widened and he resisted movement even more. “Not helping. Now look, Jeremy, honey, we’re just going to your room, okay? You’re going to spend the night in your room, per usual, and I’ll come to see you in the morning, okay?”

Jeremy thought for a moment, then relaxed so suddenly that Karl’s encouraging push sent him stumbling forward. “Why did Karl shove me?” he wanted to know of Rachel, his tone deceptively mild. She got the feeling that the wrong answer would lead to a shove _back_.

“There was a bus coming right at you, and he pushed you out of the way,” Rachel claimed. Karl gave him a look that said, _So there_.

Jeremy glanced around the hallway, contemplating the feasibility of this idea. “Oh. Okay,” he declared, and continued walking towards his room.

Rachel sighed and caught up with him. “So you understand what’s happening now?” she checked.

“Oh, sure,” he responded casually. “You’re going to lock me in my room for the night, because I’m having delusions and might get into trouble by myself.”

“That’s right.” They stopped at his room and Rachel opened the door panel. “And I’ll be back in the morning. You’ll be okay?” she asked as he stepped slowly into the room.

“Oh, sure,” he repeated. “I’ll put the game on, have some leftover pizza and beer.”

Rachel nodded. “Okay. I am once again setting this so you can’t let yourself out,” she added, tapping at the door panel.

“And no one else can, either, right?” Jeremy checked. “Like Karl or the other agents. You should make sure they can’t let me out.”

Rachel had been planning to add that precaution anyway. “Are you getting anxious?” she asked. “It’s okay, if you get out, the guards will just follow you and make sure you don’t get into any trouble. You won’t cause a lockdown.”

“Yeah, that’s good to know,” Jeremy replied. “Only you can let me out, right? Make it extra super-duper tight.”

Rachel shook her head. “Yeah, I’m checking the ‘extra super-duper’ box right now.” She finished and faced him across the threshold, ready to slide the door panel back into place. “Goodnight, Jeremy.”

“Goodnight, Dr. Ward.” Rachel hit the button. And Jeremy grabbed her and pulled her into his room just before the door shut.

Rachel froze, half-expecting a pain signal from a limb crushed in the doorway to hit her brain in a second. Then she reminded herself the doorways had proximity detectors and would stay open if something was in the way. Then, she glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the door had, in fact, closed.

Then she got mad.

“You idiot, what are you doing?!” she snapped, shoving Jeremy back slightly. This did not disturb the smug look on his face, which made her even angrier. “You could’ve gotten me caught in the door!”

“I calculated that I wouldn’t,” Jeremy claimed. “Fortunately you’re not wearing your lab coat, that would have made it riskier.”

“Oh well good,” Rachel told him with deep sarcasm. “I thought you were taking this well and were actually going to be _mature_ and _responsible_ for once, but _no_.” Perhaps this assessment was unfair, but Jeremy didn’t seem perturbed.

“Now you can spend the night,” he pointed out cheerfully.

“I don’t _want_ to spend the night!”

He ignored this. “We can do stuff on the computer, or play cards,” Jeremy planned. “And there’s plenty to eat.”

Rachel sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. “Leftover pizza and beer?” she guessed.

“Well, no,” Jeremy admitted. “I was just pretending, to lower your guard.”

Rachel did not find this very clever. “Jeremy! You are already having delusions about what’s real and what isn’t! You can’t go around _pretending_ on top of that!”

“I’m making the most of my deficiency,” he told her matter-of-factly. “So, do you want to watch a movie on the computer? Maybe something mild, like a marine-life documentary—“

“NO,” Rachel asserted, turning back to the door. “I’m leaving.”

“Okay, well, you can’t open the door,” Jeremy pointed out, the tiniest bit pleased with himself.

Rachel tried anyway, receiving a message of ‘denied’ as he’d predicted. She gritted her teeth. “Okay, _you_ open the door,” she ordered.

“Oh, I can’t, either,” he reminded her innocently. “That’s the whole point.”

Rachel took a few breaths to calm herself and turned back around to face him. “Jeremy. I will not stay here all night,” she stated. “This door needs to open. Now.”

He was infuriatingly unaffected by her Serious Voice. “Sorry, Dr. Ward.” He did not sound sorry. “Only _you_ can open the door. But only from the other side.”

“That’s not true,” she shot back, wondering what Karl was doing out in the hall right now. Hopefully summoning help. “The guards can unlock it. The security monitors can unlock it.”

These suggestions suspiciously did not faze him. “They haven’t yet, though,” he noted lightly. “Would you like an orange? Some sugar might help you to calm down.”

Rachel was the exact opposite of calm right now, and she didn’t think an orange would help. Unless she got to do something with it that even Quarles wouldn’t approve of. “Jeremy, you can take that orange and—“

“Dr. Ward,” he interrupted hastily, “I think you’re overreacting a bit. Why don’t you sit—“

She held out her hand to silence him, then turned towards the nearest security camera. “Okay, you can open the door now,” she instructed. Nothing happened. Rachel glanced back at Jeremy to see if he was doing anything threatening, but he was just standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Come on,” she prompted the camera. “Hey!” She waved her arms in front of it. “I’m sure you’re all finding this _really_ funny, but joke’s over. Let me out.” Nothing.

Rachel wheeled slowly back to face Jeremy. “You think you’re _so_ clever, don’t you,” she accused. “Well I’ve got a cell phone, a locator beacon, _and_ a panic button. I start messing with _any_ of those and a platoon of guards are gonna come stomping down the hallway.” She could just imagine the weekend security monitors dithering about what to do in their control room, vainly trying to contact someone higher up for advice.

Jeremy nodded innocently. “Those are all electronic, right?” he asked her.

His tone was leading and Rachel’s eyes narrowed at him, sharpening on the hands in his pockets. “Are you using a signal jammer?” she demanded.

“What? No,” he claimed.

“Jeremy!” She advanced on him menacingly.

“No, they took it away from me,” he tried to tell her, backing away towards the bed.

Rachel had reached her limit. If reason wasn’t going to work on him, and authority wouldn’t either, she would have to find something that did. So she grabbed one of his jean pockets and plunged her hand into it, searching for the signal jammer. This move seemed to take him by surprise and he instinctively tackled her to the bed, pulling her hand away so she wouldn’t get hurt. Rachel was not giving up without a fight, however.

“Are you playing or are you serious?” Jeremy checked.

She kicked his shin in response. “All day I have put up with you stalking zombies, throwing temper tantrums, breaking out of locked rooms, and _fondling my tentacles_!” Rachel huffed furiously, shoving at him. “Screw your messed-up hallucinations, I want to go home!”

Suddenly the door slid open and Karl poked his head in, raising an eyebrow at their compromising position. “Should I close the door?” he asked blandly.

“No!” Rachel snapped. She leveraged Jeremy off her, sending him tumbling over the side of the bed, and stomped back to the doorway, trying to straighten her clothes with a little dignity. He stayed hidden behind the bed and she was about to leave him there, and good riddance; but then she thought, what if he’d hit his head or something? Which didn’t make her feel any more sympathetic to him, she just didn’t want to neglect her duty as a medical professional. “Get out here where I can see you!” she demanded.

Sullenly Jeremy crawled out from behind the bed. “Is he a pony again?” Karl asked unhelpfully. “You know what happens to bad ponies.” Jeremy gave him a poisonous look and climbed to his feet, starting to walk towards them.

“Stop,” Rachel told him, untrustingly, and he did. Then he inched forward a bit more while she reset the door panel. “You get within two feet of this door,” she threatened, “and Karl has my permission to punch you in the face.” Karl seemed pleased at this prospect, Jeremy much less so.

“Dr. Ward—“ Jeremy started to protest, cajole, reason, whatever—Rachel was _done_ with it and shut the door on him, and she didn’t feel at all guilty about it.

Probably she would later, though.

Rachel heaved a sigh, thinking about how she had to go back up to her office, get her stuff, go down to her car, and drive home, an impossibly long series of events. And tomorrow she would get up and do it all again! She started by heading back down the hall.

“How’d you get the door open, Karl?” she asked curiously.

“I didn’t. It just opened.”

“Oh.” Rachel frowned. “So what did you do while Jeremy was holding me prisoner in there?”

“Nothing,” Karl shrugged without concern. “I just stood there and waited.”

Rachel was thoroughly exasperated with _both_ of them now. “You could’ve called for help!” she pointed out. “You could’ve gotten Eduardo.”

Karl was not ashamed of this lapse. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.” Rachel got the impression he hadn’t really tried to think of _anything_.

“Honestly, it’s like working with the world’s most dangerous kindergarten sometimes,” she muttered, reaching the checkpoint.

“Problems, Dr. Ward?” Eduardo asked, looking up from his Kindle.

“Always,” Rachel replied darkly. “Please keep an eye on Jeremy, he’s in a sneaky mood tonight,” she added as she escaped the resident zone. Karl stayed behind and she turned back to look at him. “Thanks for your help once again, Karl,” she told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Hey, no skipping your check-up just because you have a new mission,” she warned, because she was in a no-nonsense frame of mind right now.

“Yes, Dr. Ward,” he agreed, and finally she put the agents behind her for the day.


	5. Day Five

_Day Five—Monday_

He had been waiting for a long time. It was a necessary wait, for the decompression chamber to adjust his internal pressure to match this new environment. He didn’t want his organs to explode like overripe fruit, after all. And the decompression chamber was apparently the deluxe model, with furniture and communication equipment, and even something that looked vaguely like an Earth bathroom. He had carefully tested it before use, of course, to avoid making any embarrassing, potentially offensive mistakes. He didn’t need to make headlines back home for peeing in the decorative water feature, after all.

Finally there was a chime from the door and he stood to face it, straightening his uniform self-consciously. He tried to stand tall, reminding himself that he represented Earth and all of humanity; though it was difficult not to feel inferior when surrounded by so much advanced alien technology. What did humanity have to offer such a civilization, humanity who had just barely crawled out of their own solar system and limped along to the next inhabited planet, its astronauts forced to use cryogenic preservation to make up for the lack of faster-than-light travel? Well, everyone had to start somewhere, he reminded himself, lifting his chin a notch.

The door slid open with a hiss and he got his first look at an extraterrestrial being. It was quite a shock and he struggled to school his features into a more professional expression, though he doubted his host would know the difference. He was shocked because she—definitely a she, though he supposed he shouldn’t assume—looked so very human, and beautiful, too, if he was being honest. A classical, angelic face, pale skin, long dark curly hair, even a silky blouse and white lab coat, so like the doctors he’d known on Earth.

Of course, there the similarity ended, because from the waist down she had tentacles. They were a becoming shade of green and not overly moist, however, and she glided forward on them with surprising grace and elegance. He tried not to stare but didn’t succeed and she glanced down at the limbs curiously, as though searching for something out of place. Finding nothing amiss she faced him again and spoke.

Of course he had no idea what she’d said. It had taken them hours to translate just the message that had been sent over the radio, but hopefully his people were hard at work trying to crack the code, and if they just kept speaking to one another, eventually they would figure it out.

“Greetings from the planet Earth,” he told her formally. Had they agreed he should bow or not? He did so, a little. “I’m Captain Hans Strider, of the space vessel _Karnak_.”

The woman—he couldn’t help thinking of her as such—raised an eyebrow, a curious gesture that in a human might have indicated surprise and confusion. She spoke again and he tried to indicate he was listening closely.

“We come in peace to your planet, and thank you for welcoming us,” he replied.

She nodded and moved toward him, and it was only then he realized she was carrying something, a tray of some kind. He’d thought at first it was some part of her clothing or anatomy. She stopped before him, almost touching him with the tray, and spoke again, which he took as invitation to gingerly inspect the items she carried. A bowl of small tan flat irregular objects, perhaps some kind of native soil sample for him to examine; a glass with a cap, containing an opaque white liquid which he hoped was _not_ a sample of the local ‘water’; an orange sphere and a small metal implement, perhaps mechanical components or tools; and a couple of bound paper packets covered with images and text. If they were guide books or technological manuals he would be very pleased—once they’d been translated.

After a moment, though, the woman made a noise that could only be described as ‘impatient’ and stepped to the side, around him. She set the tray down on the nearby table and wheeled on her tentacles to face him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand your language,” he pointed out, trying to maintain a polite tone. Surely this was obvious. “We’re working on the translation now.” He tried pointing to one of the objects on the tray. “What is this?” he asked, exaggerating his expression to display quizzicalnes. “What is this object called?”

The woman replied, picking up the orange sphere he’d indicated. He thought he was starting to at least distinguish and remember a couple of words she’d used several times, though given the context he couldn’t be certain what they meant. Hesitantly he held out his hand and she placed the orange sphere in it.

It was oddly warm and seemed to tremble slightly of its own volition. As he stared at it closely, he realized the orange outer layer was actually short fur, and after a moment the object rolled slightly in his palm and two enormous eyes opened to blink at him. He was taken aback but tried to make no sudden moves that would startle the creature—obviously this was some kind of native animal she felt it important to introduce him to. Was it some kind of domesticated pet? It seemed to smile at him enchantingly, reminding him of a snub-nosed Pomeranian puppy; its tiny, chipmunk-like paws unfurled as it relaxed in his grasp. Gently, he brought his other hand up to the top of its furry head and stroked it, delighting in its softness and the satisfied cooing noise it made.

Suddenly the woman made a noise—disapproval, perhaps, or disdain, from her expression—and she snatched the creature roughly from his palm. To his horror she used a long, claw-like fingernail to stab into its head and rip off a large chunk of skin, then dug out a hunk of its raw flesh, still dripping with pale orange blood, and tossed it into her mouth.

He sat down hard, queasy, averting his eyes from the remainder of the carcass that she offered him. He had been trained for moments like this, he told himself, moments when something they did seemed so alien, so _wrong_ , that he wanted to react with fear and anger. He had to overcome that initial response. He swallowed hard and looked back up at her, concern now etched on her face, and shook his head tightly at the food item. He hoped that refusing it didn’t constitute a grave insult; he felt that accepting it, then throwing it back up, almost certainly would. With a dismissive shrug the woman discarded the body carelessly onto the tray and made a nominal effort to clean the blood from her hands. Then she sat down and picked up one of the bound paper packets, propping several tentacles up on a third chair as she opened _The New England Journal of Medicine_. He blinked rapidly and saw legs, not tentacles, resting on the chair.

“Dr. Ward?” Jeremy said, with great uncertainty.

She peered at him over the top of her medical journal. “Oh, are you speaking English again?” she asked sarcastically. “How nice.” He seemed a bit shaken, though, and she frowned at him. “Are you okay? Do you want something to eat?”

Jeremy’s eyes strayed to the orange she’d partially peeled for him, then snapped back. “No, I’m not hungry,” he claimed.

“Are you nauseous?” Rachel questioned. “If you are, there’s the bathroom.” She went back to her reading.

There was a moment of silence. “Oh. Are you still mad at me about yesterday?” Jeremy guessed.

“Uh-huh,” Rachel agreed, not looking at him. “But I am _ordered_ to keep an eye on you down here, at least until my appointment with Karl at eleven.”

Jeremy thought this over. “Can I hold your feet in my lap, Dr. Ward?” he requested. “I think that would help keep them from turning into tentacles.”

“Tentacles again?” Rachel sighed. Jeremy blinked at her. “Sure, I guess,” she allowed reluctantly. She put her feet down and let Jeremy switch chairs, then put her feet up in his lap. He steadied them carefully.

“I wish you weren’t mad at me, Dr. Ward,” he said after a long moment.

“Well, I wish you wouldn’t lie and pretend, when you’re already having hallucinations,” Rachel shot back, staring fixedly at her magazine. “Now I don’t know when you’re really confused and when you aren’t.”

“That was an error in judgment on my part,” Jeremy conceded. “But I didn’t want you to leave. I’ve been here by myself for almost fourteen hours,” he added. He sounded sad, but also resigned; it was the resignation that got Rachel.

At last she put the journal down. “Okay, apology accepted,” she decided, and his face lit up. Considering that he didn’t actually smile, it was a remarkable transformation. “So what were you imagining just now?” she wanted to know.

“What’s _your_ guess?” he asked cagily.

“Well, you were speaking in gibberish, and you didn’t seem to recognize ordinary things,” Rachel described. “Were you an alien?”

“No, _you_ were the alien,” Jeremy corrected, with a modicum of excitement. “I was an explorer, like on _Star Trek_ , and you were an alien with—“

“Tentacles, yeah, I know,” Rachel finished. “What’s with this tentacle obsession?”

“I had an octopus as a pet,” Jeremy claimed. Rachel’s eyebrows rose. Jeremy’s lowered in a frown. “What did I just say?” he wanted to know.

“You said you had an octopus as a pet,” Rachel repeated. He glanced around the room. “In the past,” she clarified.

“That’s a weird thing to say,” Jeremy judged.

“I’ve heard worse,” Rachel told him. “So, I was a green-skinned alien babe with tentacles, huh?”

“Well, the tentacles were green,” Jeremy explained, “but from the waist up you looked like a Caucasian human babe.” Rachel’s eyebrows went up again and Jeremy thought for a moment. “No, it’s okay, I meant to say that,” he decided.

Rachel chose not to examine that comment any further. “So, last day for the medicine,” she reminded him. “By tomorrow evening you should be back to normal.”

“I’m not sure what that feels like,” he admitted.

“Freedom and confidence,” Rachel claimed blithely. “You’ll be able to go outside again, and you can run around at night instead of being locked in your room. What do you normally do at night, anyway?”

“Sleep,” Jeremy replied prosaically. Rachel was skeptical. “I don’t usually get all the sleep I need in the field,” he elaborated, “so I sleep now and store it up for later.”

“Okay, physiology doesn’t actually work like that,” she pointed out. He didn’t seem convinced. Sadly, Rachel felt they might’ve had this same conversation even if he _wasn’t_ sick. She decided to change the subject. “So what did you do last night?”

“I exercised,” Jeremy listed, “and I took a shower, and I ate a snack. I read some stuff online. I really wanted to build a fort but I didn’t.”

“Good,” Rachel praised. “Because then someone would’ve had to come check on you, and interrupt you.”

“I don’t think anyone would’ve come to check on me,” Jeremy scoffed. “No one would come in here, if I was hallucinating and hiding in a fort, except _you_.” The way he said this indicated that Rachel doing so showed rather poor judgment.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m glad you resisted the urge anyway.” She waited a moment to see if he had anything else to say, but he seemed content to stare at her. She was not. “Well, what shall we do now?” she prompted.

“Can we leave my room?” he asked.

“No.” She was not going to risk that.

“We could play a game,” Jeremy suggested.

“What sort of game?” Rachel questioned conditionally.

“Chess.”

She relaxed. “Oh, okay. I’m not very good at chess, you might have to remind me of how the pieces move,” she warned him.

“Okay,” he agreed.

He didn’t move from his seat, though. “Do you have a chess set here?” Rachel finally asked.

“No.”

“Are we going to play it on the computer?”

“No, I thought we could just imagine it,” Jeremy clarified.

“Just imagine it, huh,” Rachel repeated dubiously. “Do you do this a lot?”

“It’s helpful at keeping the mind engaged while on a stakeout,” Jeremy nodded.

“Sorry, pal,” Rachel told him regretfully. “I don’t think I have the brainpower to play an imaginary game of chess.”

“Checkers?” he countered hopefully.

Rachel tried to picture it. “No, sorry. What about cards?” she asked, trying to come up with a game within her mental capacity. “Do you have a deck of cards handy?”

“No, I’m not allowed to keep weapons in my room,” Jeremy replied. Rachel waited for him to realize that statement made no sense. But he didn’t. “I could take a nap,” he suggested unexpectedly.

Rachel frowned. “Do you feel okay? Why don’t you eat something—“

He deliberately pushed the tray she’d brought away to the far side of the table. “Well, I didn’t get much sleep last night because the ghost kept me awake,” he explained reasonably.

“Uh-huh,” Rachel commented. “What ghost?”

“Her name is Lady Philippa Westholme,” Jeremy went on, “and she was murdered by her husband so he could get her fortune. Then he married his mistress, and Lady Philippa vowed to haunt their descendents for all time.”

Rachel nodded slowly. “So does that mean you’re one of this guy’s descendents?”

The question seemed to throw him. “Oh, I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe she was in the wrong room.”

“So you didn’t get much sleep last night because you were being terrorized by a ghost in a case of mistaken identity?” Rachel summarized dryly.

“Oh, I wasn’t being terrorized,” Jeremy insisted. “She was just very talkative. I wouldn’t be scared of a ghost, I have my Paranormal Defense certification.” He blinked suddenly. “What did I just say?”

“You have a certification in Paranormal Defense,” Rachel reminded him helpfully.

“Oh. Okay.” So apparently, _that_ wasn’t weird. “So, I could take a nap, and store up some energy for summer,” he went on.

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Rachel hedged. “I would rather you not sleep. I don’t want you to get depressed.”

“Does sleeping make you sad, Dr. Ward?” Jeremy asked with great concern.

“Only sleeping in excess,” Rachel tried to tell him. “After a while you start to get sluggish, and you don’t feel like doing anything else.” This idea seemed to trouble him—although she was sure they’d talked about it before—so she decided to change the subject. “How about we play Twenty Questions?” she suggested. “I’ll think of a famous person, and you try to work out who it is by asking yes-or-no questions.”

Jeremy frowned at her. “I don’t want to employ interrogation techniques on you, Dr. Ward,” he said.

“Well that’s good,” Rachel deadpanned. “How about I promise to always answer the yes-or-no question truthfully? But you only get twenty. Do you need an example?”

“No, I understand,” Jeremy assured her.

She somehow doubted that. But she was willing to give it a try. “Okay, I’m thinking of a famous person,” she announced. “Ask your first question.”

“Is the person alive?” Jeremy began.

Rachel was pleased it wasn’t anything too bizarre. “No,” she replied.

“Joseph Stalin,” he guessed.

Rachel’s jaw dropped. “What? How did you guess that?!” she demanded. He was indeed correct, much to her astonishment, especially considering that Stalin had popped into her mind pretty randomly.

“I have low-level telepathy skills,” Jeremy claimed, modestly. “Maybe _you_ should ask the questions.”

They played some word games for a while—Rachel had come prepared with ideas—then read the medical journals she’d brought, though she was a little worried about Jeremy thinking he _had_ some of the diseases and conditions discussed. They even had some decent conversation, like when Jeremy asked her what a particular medical term meant. Aside from the occasional odd-even-for-him comment and a peculiar insistence on the orange she’d brought remaining uneaten, he seemed quite calm and well-behaved.

“It’s almost time for Karl’s appointment,” he noted when she looked at her watch again.

Rachel nodded. “Yep. Daily check-up. I should probably go.” She stood, reluctant to leave him alone again.

Jeremy stood as well, equally reluctant. “Can I come with you?” he finally asked.

Rachel had been thinking it over. Quarles hadn’t ordered her to keep Jeremy _specifically_ in his room, only not to ‘wander’ around the Center with him. “You could come to my office,” she suggested, “but we’d have to stay there. Is that okay?” She could definitely get more work done in her office, if he stayed quiet. Of course, right now supervising him _was_ her work, so she didn’t feel too guilty on that score.

“Okay,” he agreed, which wasn’t a surprise. She couldn’t imagine how eager he was to leave the confines of his room. “Let me get my jacket.”

“You’ve been doing a really good job today,” Rachel told him as he slipped on a black leather jacket.

“Yesterday I got sloppy,” he replied, with mild disgust. “You told me to be careful, and I just wasn’t. I’m trying harder today.”

Rachel was not sure how much control he _really_ had over it, but at least his attitude was positive. “Good,” she encouraged. “You ready?” He nodded and she opened the door to the hall, a tiny part of her wondering if this was another scam and he was just waiting for his moment to break out.

But he didn’t rush the door, he just took her hand and started to follow her out.

And then he froze at the threshold.

Rachel stopped and looked back at him. His eyes were wide with shock and alarm, and she actually glanced around herself before turning back to him. “Jeremy?” she prompted.

He closed his eyes, breathing hard. “Please come back inside,” he begged and she stepped back into the room immediately. As soon as he could he pulled away from the opening, leaning heavily against the wall.

“What do you see?” Rachel asked him in concern. He seemed terrified, sliding down to sit on the floor with his knees drawn up under his chin, shaking. She knelt down beside him and wrapped her arms around him. “Jeremy, it’s okay. Whatever you see, it isn’t real.”

He nodded against her. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ward,” he mumbled.

“No, you’re doing okay,” she soothed. “You were very careful. Do you want to stay here? Will you feel safe here by yourself?”

He shook his head and with great determination pushed himself to his feet. “I want to come with you,” he insisted shakily.

“Okay,” Rachel agreed, just trying to go with the flow at this point. She held out her hand to him again but he just stared at it.

“I don’t think I should hold your hand,” he told her, “in case I get scared and accidentally squeeze too hard.”

“That’s the point,” Rachel told him firmly. “You focus on _not_ squeezing too hard.” Still he hesitated, conflict easily visible on his face. “Okay, if you want to come with me, you have to hold my hand,” she insisted, hoping she was going in the right direction with this. “Or you can stay here, and I’ll come back to see you later.” She tried to make either choice sound acceptable.

Jeremy took a deep breath and peered around the edge of the doorway. Whatever had scared him was still out there, in his mind anyway, and Rachel didn’t like imagining what that might be. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, steeling himself. Then he opened his eyes and gave Rachel a tight nod. She held out her hand again and he took it, very gingerly, holding on to just a couple of fingers. She decided that would be okay for right now.

“Alright, let’s go.” Rachel stepped out into the hall once again and Jeremy forced himself to follow her. His body was stiff with tension and he moved slowly, but Rachel wasn’t in a hurry. Karl would wait for her. And if he didn’t she would just summon him back.

“Do you want to close your eyes?” she asked Jeremy as they shuffled along. “Would that help?”

“Maybe,” he hedged.

“Well, the corridor is straight and level with no obstacles,” Rachel described. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

“Okay.” And he closed his eyes, completely trusting in Rachel to look after him.

“You’re doing so well,” she encouraged him. “We’ll just go up to my office and you can relax. You can lay on the couch.”

“Chickens lay eggs,” Jeremy told her, eyes still closed. “People lie down.”

“Is the thing you’re so afraid of bad grammar?” Rachel asked him pointedly. He shook his head. “Well then, let’s not be too persnickety about it, okay? We’re coming up to the guard station, slow down. Stop.”

“Still sick, huh?” Eduardo surmised, looking Jeremy over. “You said it wasn’t contagious, right?”

“Right. Reaction to medication,” Rachel assured him, waiting for her ID checks to clear. She didn’t blame him for asking, though; Jeremy was pale and sweating bullets, and still had his eyes closed. “Okay, I’m gonna put your finger on the scanner,” she told him, doing so. “Okay, come on. Now we’re going to get on the elevator.” Impatiently she waited for the car to arrive.

“When we get on the elevator, can I sit down?” Jeremy asked her, deliberately modulating his breathing.

“Yes, that would be fine,” Rachel agreed. “Okay, we’re getting on the elevator now.” She jabbed the button for her floor, increasingly doubtful of the wisdom of bringing him along. “You can sit down.” He dropped to the floor and curled up in the corner, and Rachel stroked his hair soothingly.

The elevator started to slow sooner than she was expecting and she saw with irritation that it was stopping first on a lower floor. It was Monday and this was a main elevator; more staff members used it than just her, of course. But taking Jeremy through the storage area to a less-used elevator hadn’t seemed like a good idea—assuming she could even have found her way.

The doors opened and Dr. Kedar stepped on, hesitating when he saw Jeremy. “Do you need any help?” he asked Rachel in concern. Jeremy whimpered at the sound of his voice and scooted closer to her.

“No, it’s okay,” she sighed, and he nodded and hit the ‘close door’ button. She tried to be appreciative of his worry; another staff member waiting for the elevator had spotted Jeremy and decided to take the stairs instead.

It was an awkward ride, though. “Um, is he feeling sick, or…?” Dr. Kedar asked uncertainly.

“He’s scared of something,” Rachel replied, continuing to brush Jeremy’s hair. “He’s being very brave to come with me anyway,” she added, for Jeremy’s benefit.

“He knows you’ll protect him,” Dr. Kedar agreed simply, and Rachel was so startled to hear him playing along she almost forgot to keep rubbing Jeremy’s head.

“Okay, time to get up,” Rachel told him as they reached her floor just in time. “Hold my hand again. You may need to open your eyes, there’s more people here,” she warned. She nodded at Dr. Kedar, who was holding the elevator door for them, and guided Jeremy into the hall.

They had to pass another guard station before they could go any further. “Hey, Eric,” Rachel greeted cheerfully, as though nothing odd was happening. He glanced between her and Jeremy suspiciously. “He’s sick,” she pointed out, swiping Jeremy’s finger for him. It _was_ the medical zone, after all. No warnings came up on the computer, so Eric let them pass.

“We’re almost there,” Rachel insisted to Jeremy as they inched down the hall. “We just have to get to my office.” There were several other people in the hall, who gave them a wide berth as they passed. Jeremy was looking at each of them with a wild-eyed stare and Rachel hoped it wasn’t the rage-zombie thing again, though if it was he was doing a very good job of controlling himself.

“Well, do you want to close your eyes again?” she offered. “You can walk right behind me.”

“Okay,” he agreed quickly. It was a little awkward with her arm bent behind her, but he seemed willing to walk slightly faster now.

Then she felt him run into something and bounce off. “Ow!” he exclaimed, stumbling into the middle of the hall.

“Oh, G-d, I’m sorry,” Rachel told him, turning to grab him. “Are you okay?” Apparently he’d run into the side of the fire hose case, which Rachel had automatically sidestepped to avoid. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m not very good at this leading thing—“

Jeremy shook his head, like he was telling her it was no big deal, but he was panting and momentarily dropped Rachel’s hand to brace his on his knees, as though he was about to pass out.

She tried to sound firm, hoping this would give him confidence. “Jeremy, it’s just a few more feet to my office,” she pointed out. “Why don’t we hurry up and get there?”

“Can I run?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes, you can run to my office,” Rachel allowed, glaring at the nearest camera. With all the fuss Quarles had made, someone had better be watching them; and now that someone had better know not to set off an alarm.

Jeremy didn’t wait any longer but took off like a shot down the hallway. Rachel ran after him but didn’t try to keep up. He seemed to be trying to avoid people but they tended to jump aside when they saw him coming anyway, a bit overdramatically Rachel thought. “Open the door for him!” she called to the air, and—proof that they were indeed watching—someone did, parting the doors to her outer office so Jeremy didn’t have to stop and check in.

The doors had already closed again by the time Rachel got there, and of course _she_ had to fumble with her ID badge before they would open for her. The eye in the sky would only do so much for her.

“Jeremy just—“ Jenny began to tell her.

“I know, thanks,” Rachel replied, breezing past to the exam room.

Karl sat on the table waiting for her. “Jeremy just—“

“I know, thanks!” Rachel repeated, hurrying to the inner office. She didn’t see him at first, then heard the unmistakable sounds of someone throwing up in the bathroom. Fortunately it only happened once, then the toilet flushed and the sink came on. She decided it was safe to knock. “Jeremy?”

He came out after a moment, looking remarkably better, and slightly perplexed. “I just threw up,” he pointed out to Rachel.

“I know,” she agreed, feeling his forehead. He didn’t seem to be running a fever. “Do you feel dizzy or nauseous now? Headache, any other pain?”

“No,” he started to say, then he rubbed his upper arm. “My shoulder hurts.”

“You ran into something in the hall,” Rachel explained, feeling slightly guilty about that. “Are you still scared of something?”

“No,” he assured her quizzically. “What was I scared of?”

“Don’t you remember?” she checked.

He grimaced slightly. “I don’t really want to try.”

“Fair enough,” Rachel agreed. She didn’t see the need for him to relive whatever had terrified him so badly—and _she_ didn’t need to relive it, either. It was very disconcerting to see someone who was usually confident cowering in a corner. “I’m going to go meet with Karl now,” she added. “Can you stay in here by yourself? Do you want Jenny to come in?”

“Can I sit under your desk for a few minutes?” Jeremy requested instead.

It was perilously close to forting, but Rachel decided he deserved it. “Okay. But don’t leave the room.”

“Okay,” he promised. “Can I have a hug when you’re done with Karl?”

Rachel smiled at him. “Sure. Do you want a hug now?”

“No, later is fine.”

“Okay then.” Proper hug timing was obviously important. She left him in the office, pushing the chair away from her desk, and went back into the exam room. “Sorry, Karl,” she told the other man, washing her hands. “Running a little behind today. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Karl answered perfunctorily. “What’s wrong with him today?”

She started checking Karl over anyway. “He was really scared of something all the way here,” she admitted, balancing the risk of Karl mocking Jeremy for it against the possibility he might have some insight. “ _Really_ scared. Something he was seeing all around him, I guess.”

“Huh,” was all Karl said. Then, “I’m supposed to get some shots.”

“So I see,” Rachel agreed, looking at the note that had popped up on his chart. She was not told where the agents were going on their missions, of course; but sometimes she could hazard a guess based on the shots she was supposed to give them. She tried to focus on her current patient, reviewing Karl’s file to make sure the requested inoculations wouldn’t conflict with anything still in his system. “You can’t have the imoxetrine for another week,” she judged, “since you got the maldozine less than six months ago.” Karl responded with a frustrated growl. “What was that?” Rachel asked pointedly, and he cleared his throat instead. “I’ll get you some water in a minute,” she replied, with slight sarcasm. “Roll up your sleeve.”

She stuck her head into the outer office. “Jenny, could you prepare these inoculations for me?” she requested, handing the nurse the list. “Not the imoxetrine, though. I’m just going to check on Jeremy.”

“Rough morning?” Jenny asked sympathetically.

Rachel wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. “He’s been trying really hard,” she finally replied.

She left the door open to the exam room in case Jenny needed anything—she was pretty good with the agents, but Karl had a tendency to loom—and went back into her office. “Jeremy?” There was a tapping on the inside of her desk and she went around it to peer beneath the surface. Jeremy was curled up in the darkness, looking very cozy.

“How do you feel, tiger?” Rachel asked him.

“I think I feel okay,” he responded, “but I’m not really sure.”

She could imagine this was a complicated question right now. “Are you still scared?”

“No.”

“Good. Do you remember what you were scared of?”

His eyes met hers, then went up to the ceiling. “No.” Rachel immediately knew this was a lie; but she also knew he didn’t want anyone else to realize he remembered, and ask him about it.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Can you come out of there now? You can lie down on the couch.”

“You didn’t want me to fall asleep before,” he reminded her. “Because it might make me sad.”

“You’ve expended a lot of energy since then,” Rachel pointed out dryly. “Come out now.” She stepped aside and Jeremy crawled out, stood, and stretched. Then he did a backflip.

“Oh, sorry,” he said immediately upon righting himself. “That wasn’t careful.”

“No harm done,” Rachel assured him, making sure he got to the couch okay. “That’s a nice jacket, by the way.” She did have a thing for black leather.

“Thank you, I grew it myself,” he told her.

“You raised the cows?” she asked in confusion, thinking she probably shouldn’t bother.

“Sorry, what?” Jeremy responded, equally confused.

“Never mind,” Rachel decided. “You stay there while I finish up with Karl.”

“Okay, Dr. Ward.”

Rachel went back into the exam room and shut the door. Jenny was standing near the door to the outer office, arms crossed over her chest, giving Karl a steely look. He watched her with an innocence that was a little too studied for Rachel’s liking. “Any problems?” she asked, looking between the two of them.

“Jenny is very _quick_ ,” Karl replied significantly. Jenny rolled her eyes and went back to her desk. She didn’t seem upset or frightened though, just irritated.

“You better not antagonize Jenny,” Rachel warned him seriously. “She has access to all your medication, you know.”

“She might put a spell on you!” Jeremy called in.

“Jeremy says you put spells on people,” Rachel relayed to her.

“I need a vacation,” Jenny muttered in return.

Rachel smirked and went back to the tray of syringes Jenny had prepared. “Okay, Karl, pincushion time.”

“I have learned several sewing techniques,” he assured her flatly.

“Uh-huh.” Rachel started injecting him. “Right up there with that Viking weaving, right?” Karl was unimpressed with her teasing. Which was reasonable, since she was after all teasing him for possessing far more skills than she did.

There was a thump from her office. “Jeremy?” she checked.

“I’m okay!” he called back.

Another thump. Now it was Rachel’s turn to growl slightly—she was right in the middle of giving Karl his inoculations. “Open the door,” she ordered. She heard the door open but unfortunately was positioned mostly with her back to it, and Karl’s expression told her nothing. “What are you doing in there, Jeremy?” she asked suspiciously.

“There was this really, really big spider, Dr. Ward!” Jeremy described.

“So you squashed it?” Rachel assumed. “That’s not being careful.” She hoped her computer was still intact.

“No, I got up on the table away from it,” he insisted. “I didn’t squash it. It might have been someone I knew.”

Rachel briefly met Karl’s gaze. “Oh, well, that’s good,” she encouraged. “Just stand there in the doorway.”

“Is there an earthquake?” Jeremy asked worriedly. Rachel didn’t respond, as a particular syringe had just become a bit unwieldy. “If there’s an earthquake, we ought to—“

“No earthquake,” Rachel corrected, distracted. “Just wait a minute for—D—n! I’m sorry, Karl,” she sighed.

“It didn’t hurt,” he claimed, which may have been true.

She put down the syringe and took a moment to face Jeremy. “Just stand there for a couple minutes while I finish up with Karl, okay? _Quietly_ , please.” Jeremy nodded dutifully and she turned back to Karl. “Just one more,” she promised. “There, all done.” She taped a cotton pad over the injection site on his arm and went to wash her hands.

Karl hopped off the exam table, gave Jeremy a look of superiority, and started to walk out. “Karl,” Rachel countered. “You need to stay here for fifteen minutes. To make sure you don’t have any adverse reactions.”

He gave her a stony look. “That seems unnecessary and inefficient.”

Rachel was not intimidated. “Yes, _why_ would we be worried about adverse reactions to medication?” she asked sarcastically.

“ _I’m_ having an adverse reaction to medication,” Jeremy offered helpfully.

Karl saw her point. “Fine.”

“You and Jeremy can sit in my office,” Rachel suggested, as Jenny came in to clean up. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She shut the door behind them, hoping they could play nice for a couple minutes. “Anything wrong with Karl?” she asked the nurse in a low voice.

Jenny rolled her eyes again. “He asked if I’d rather be put in a blender or a vat of acid,” she reported with disgust. “And I told him I would write him up if he didn’t shut it.”

“Good for you,” Rachel praised firmly. “That’s actually something he and Jeremy were talking about yesterday,” she added, hoping the explanation would make Jenny feel better. “But yeah, he should know better.”

“Jayla Horner told me he just has a very dry sense of humor,” Jenny scoffed.

“Dry like the mystery meatloaf,” Rachel agreed. She left Jenny to her work and went back to her office, where Karl and Jeremy were sitting very quietly. She gave them a hard look to see if they cracked and confessed to something bad they’d done, but they didn’t; so she got out the crayons and paper for them.

Jeremy knelt happily at the coffee table and started to draw. “I want to build something,” he declared. “Like a house. With wood and tools and paint.”

“That’s nice,” Rachel encouraged. “Have you ever done any carpentry before?”

“No,” he replied with disappointment. “Juan went undercover as a carpenter once. He helped build the kennels as part of his training.”

“Well, maybe when you’re better you could—“ She saw Karl check his watch. “Do you have a hot date or something, Karl?”

He blinked at her. “I have to increase my capsaicin tolerance,” he replied.

After a moment Rachel laughed. “You _do_ have a hot date!” she realized. “Seriously? Next you’re going to practice eating spicy foods?”

Karl’s look suggested this was serious business, not something to laugh at. “It is essential research for my mission.”

“I’m sure it is,” Rachel chuckled. “I’m sure all the Chinese underworld bosses have some sort of test they put new recruits through. ‘Eat this hot pepper and become one of us!’”

Karl was unnervingly unresponsive to this comment and Rachel’s laughter died out. “She likes to guess,” Jeremy assured him. He was drawing a golden Chinese dragon with flames spewing from its mouth. “She doesn’t really know.”

“She shouldn’t guess,” Karl warned menacingly.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Well, _you_ shouldn’t threaten to put Jenny in a blender,” she replied randomly, slightly defensive. “Someone could write you up for that. And, it’s not nice.”

“Why did you threaten Jenny?” Jeremy asked Karl in a quiet voice—too quiet and too still, like the wrong answer would cause him to spring.

“I’m taking a survey,” Karl insisted innocently. “So far three people have chosen the vat of acid, one the blender, and seven have abstained from answering.”

“Oh. Okay.” This answer was good enough for Jeremy and he went back to drawing.

Now it was Rachel’s turn to look at her watch. “Okay, fifteen minutes,” she announced, and Karl stood quickly. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” Of course he did.

“Dizziness, nausea, headache, difficulty breathing?” Rachel quizzed.

“No.”

Jeremy made a little noise, kind of like the ‘wrong answer’ buzzer on a game show. Karl shot him a glare. And Rachel noticed a slight redness around the base of Karl’s throat.

“Unbutton your shirt,” she commanded. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to do it. Then, with an extremely put-upon expression, he finally did. The skin on his chest—which had been fine minutes earlier—was now covered in a red rash. Rachel gave him a deeply unimpressed look, which Karl had no defense against.

“It itches,” he finally admitted.

Rachel sighed in exasperation. “Karl, good G-d, it could’ve been your throat swelling shut or something. It _still_ might be,” she added grimly. “Come on, I’ll put some cream on that.”

He did not follow her to the exam room until she reached back and took his arm. “ _Then_ I can go?”

“Sorry, pal,” Rachel replied, not really very sorry. “Unreported allergic reaction? You are gonna stay under professional observation for the next three hours.”

“Three hours,” Karl repeated with disapproval.

“Yes,” Rachel told him firmly. She pushed him onto the exam table and went to retrieve a tube of ointment. “You can hang out with me and Jeremy. Or you can go to the hospital wing,” she threatened when he started to balk.

“Is Karl going to hang out with us?” Jeremy called from the other room.

“Yes. Is that okay?” Rachel checked as she applied the cream to the rash.

“Sure,” Jeremy agreed. “I’ll just put some more steaks on the grill. How do you like your steak, Karl?”

“Raw,” Karl replied, in a tone that was supposed to indicate his continued displeasure.

“Okay. Won’t be long, then,” Jeremy concluded cheerfully.

“Do not set anything on fire,” Rachel warned him.

“Well, okay.”

Having just barely caught one allergic reaction symptom—granted, not a very serious one, as yet anyway—Rachel decided to check Karl for others, since he clearly wasn’t going to be telling her about them. “A bad attitude will not get you cleared for duty any faster,” Rachel warned him.

“You already cleared me.”

“Well, I just _uncleared_ you,” she corrected.

“Because of a _rash_?” Karl protested.

“Hopefully that will just be temporary,” Rachel conceded. “But if you need that one inoculation you can’t leave for a week, at least.”

“Imoxetrine,” he clarified disdainfully, as if to show he had indeed been paying attention.

“Trust me, you want that one,” Rachel assured him. “Or you are going to have microscopic worms crawling around inside you. Very unpleasant.” At this, Karl at least quit complaining.

“Dr. Ward!” Jeremy called in.

“Yes, Jeremy,” Rachel answered patiently.

“My nose is running! And, my eyes itch,” he claimed. “And my throat feels swollen. I think I’m allergic to something.” He came to the doorway of the exam room, sniffling and rubbing his eyes.

“I think you’re just imagining it, buddy,” Rachel pointed out, still checking Karl. He didn’t seem to care if he had an audience. “Wait a few minutes and it will go away.”

He swallowed dramatically. “I feel really awful, Dr. Ward,” he insisted, snuffling loudly. “I can’t concentrate on anything. I can’t shoot anything properly!”

Rachel gave him a sideways glance. “Jeremy, you’re not supposed to be shooting anything,” she told him firmly. “No weapons. If you keep talking like that you’ll have to go back to your room.”

“Weapons? No, I mean shoot like with a _camera_ ,” Jeremy insisted, dabbing at his eyes and nose with a Kleenex. “On that last shoot—the girls had all these crazy feathers—maybe I’m allergic to one of those exotic chickens or something.”

Rachel was relieved that he wasn’t talking about anything violent, at least, though his tone reminded her of a sleazy ‘art’ photographer. “Uh-huh. Turn back around,” she ordered him. “Take that bottle out of your pocket.”

“What bottle?” he asked innocently.

“Karl, you can get dressed now,” she told the other man. “Three hours. You feel weird at all, you better speak up.”

“Allergies,” Karl scoffed with disgust.

“Cheer up,” Rachel advised, washing her hands. “You’re still the more normal one.” She stalked over to Jeremy and yanked the bottle of pills he’d purloined from his jacket pocket.

“Hey, I have a prescription for those!” he claimed indignantly.

“They’re vitamins,” Rachel pointed out coldly. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of him mistakenly ingesting drugs. “Get back in my office, skeevy porn photographer.”

“Hey, my work is totally legit,” he insisted, backing into her office under her glare. “I got permits and everything! Right, Big K?”

“Don’t involve me,” Karl rumbled, buttoning his shirt.

“Sit,” Rachel ordered, containing him safely on the couch.

He looked her up and down. “Say, you ever done any work in the industry, sweetheart?” he asked her suggestively, and Rachel rolled her eyes. “Lots of girls do a little modeling on the side, you know, to help pay for med school. I could hook you up with—“

“Oh stop,” Rachel finally told him. She was torn between amusement and disgust. “What possible mission could you have done with _this_ persona?”

“Well, that’s classified, sweetheart,” he replied in a coy tone, spreading his arms over the back of the couch. “But if you’d like to come to my studio sometime, maybe we could talk about it.”

Rachel tried not to smirk and thus encourage him. “What about your allergic reaction?” she reminded him. “To the exotic chicken feathers?”

“Just a glitch,” he shrugged. “You wanna come over here and sit down? Don’t be so stand-offish.”

“K-Karl!” Rachel called, her voice stuttering over a giggle. “Aren’t you dressed yet? Big K?”

“Don’t call me that,” Karl said gruffly, finally stepping into her office. Rachel was glad for the chaperone.

Jeremy’s eyes flickered between the two of them speculatively. “Well, I’m an open-minded kinda guy—“

Rachel made a choking noise and abandoned him for a few minutes to ask Jenny to bring them lunch. Karl could take care of himself, she decided heartlessly.

When she returned they were both drawing quietly—nothing obscene, she checked—and she was able to work on her latest reports. Flagging Karl for a week’s delay before starting his mission, for example—as soon as she’d clicked the button a rather rude pop-up window appeared, reminding her strongly of Supervisor Wollstonecraft in tone as it demanded further justification. Which led to a Wikipedia search for statistics and gruesome medical photos to bolster her argument.

“Stop it, Karl,” Jeremy warned coldly, and Rachel looked up suddenly. Jeremy was glaring at Karl, who looked back at him with confusion. Then Karl decided, prudently, to get up and come stand by Rachel. Jeremy watched him suspiciously, then finally went back to drawing. Until a moment later—“Karl, I said _stop it_!” he ground out angrily.

Karl looked to Rachel for assistance. “Jeremy, Karl’s not doing anything,” she told him cautiously. “What do you think he’s doing?”

“He shouldn’t call me dumb,” Jeremy asserted. “I’m not dumb. I’m good at stuff. Like climbing.”

“I know you are, tiger,” Rachel assured him. Slowly she stood and walked over to him, not liking the tension in his shoulders. “But Karl didn’t say anything. You’re just imagining that.” Though it wasn’t exactly the most bizarre hallucination he’d ever had. Today.

Jeremy stared up at her with big, moist blue-green eyes. “I’m not dumb,” he insisted, desperately, and she remembered Dennis’s blunt assessment from the day before—dumb as a box of rocks.

“No, you’re not dumb,” Rachel soothed, rubbing his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. “You’re very smart. You can speak all kinds of languages and do complex math in your head and program computers—“ That was the first ‘smart’ stuff she could come up with.

“Yeah,” Jeremy sighed contentedly, snuggling against her.

“Emotion,” Karl snorted, in the same mocking way he’d said ‘allergies’ earlier.

The agents were not really supposed to display much emotion. “Well, he’s sick,” Rachel allowed, stroking his hair. She wasn’t really a fan of the ‘no emotions’ thing personally, but she conceded it was probably useful in the field.

There was a noise in the other room and then Jenny came in with three boxes on a tray. “I got fish, beef, and chicken,” she pointed out, setting the food down on the coffee table.

“Thanks, Jenny,” Rachel told her, gently disengaging Jeremy.

“Would you like a hug, Jenny?” he offered the nurse as she and Rachel opened the food boxes. Karl stayed on the other side of the room, away from Jenny and any hugging.

“I’m not really a hugger,” Jenny demurred smoothly. “How about a high-five?”

“I think that would be too violent,” Jeremy judged. “Handshake?”

“Okay,” Jenny agreed, so they shook hands—though if anyone even remembered what the original motivation had been, they didn’t remark on it.

“This looks really good,” Rachel decided. “Jeremy, what do you want? Maybe the tuna casserole?”

“Okay, Dr. Ward.”

She glanced over at Karl. “You want the hamburger, Karl? Or the chicken breast?”

“Hamburger.” She was not surprised.

“Do you need anything else, Dr. Ward?” Jenny asked, pointedly ignoring Karl’s presence. “I was going to go out for lunch.”

“No, that’s okay, Jenny, thank you,” Rachel told her.

“Thank you, Jenny!” Jeremy called after her. Karl said nothing and started eating.

“So what have you been drawing?” Rachel asked as she ate the chicken. The drawings had been hastily pushed aside to make room for the food.

“I’m drawing a house I want to build,” Jeremy told her. “It’s just a rundown 1950s Canyon Ranchero style right now, but I’m gonna strip it down to the original foundations and build it back up again.”

“Really,” Rachel replied with interest, wondering where this hallucination had come from if he’d never done any carpentry training or field work.

“Yeah, it’ll have all the modern amenities, of course,” he went on, “but with the classic finish and details. Give it a sense of history, you know? And of course, the line of fichus trees outside. Always gotta have the fichus trees.”

“That sounds very nice,” Rachel commented. “Where is this house at, again?”

“It’s in the valley, on the other side of the res,” Jeremy described easily. Someone more clever and determined than Rachel could probably figure out the location just from that, she decided. “Could take six, eight months, but I think I’ll be able to sell it for at least a mil when I’m done, maybe one-point-five.”

“Oh, you’re not going to live in it yourself?” she realized.

“Nah, too rich for _my_ blood,” Jeremy dismissed. “I’ll probably crash in it while I’m working on it, save some money on rent.”

Rachel nodded, then turned to Karl. “Any thoughts about this one, Karl?” she asked hopefully.

“Home improvement and real estate TV shows,” he replied definitively. Rachel suspected he might just be guessing, though. “They’re considered safe to watch. Some people overindulge,” he just had to add.

“Safe, huh,” Rachel repeated. “You guys don’t really watch that much TV, do you?”

“Most televisions have a non-optimum refresh rate,” Karl agreed. At least, she _thought_ he was agreeing. “We get headaches from watching it,” he clarified at her look.

“Jeremy and I watch movies on my laptop,” Rachel countered. Often zombie movies, but after yesterday’s adventures she was going to change genres. “Maybe we could stream some episodes of _This Old House_.”

“Laptops have a customizable refresh rate,” Karl told her, then added, “They can be set so we don’t get headaches so fast.”

“Thank you for translating for my tiny, non-technological brain, Karl,” Rachel joked, since that was his tone.

“Also we’re discouraged from identifying too much with popular culture outside of mission research,” he added flatly. This was not exactly news to Rachel, though she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard anyone say it flat-out before. The agents were kept under tight control at the Center, not just physically but also mentally and of course emotionally. Non-mission-related stimulation was neither needed nor desired, at least according to the higher-ups.

“I’m thinking of growing a beard,” Jeremy announced suddenly, out of nowhere. “Do you think you would like me with a beard, Dr. Ward?”

“I would like you anyway,” Rachel promised him. “But I’ve seen you with a beard, remember?” Well, maybe he didn’t _need_ to remember; that was after he’d been captured and tortured as part of a mission. She quickly lightened her tone. “It was a scruffy mountain-man beard, I don’t know if that’s really you.”

Jeremy gazed at her steadily, and Rachel feared he was going to flashback to being tortured or something. “I think it really _was_ me, Dr. Ward,” he pointed out delicately. “As far as I know I have no clones of similar age.”

Rachel wasn’t quite sure where to go with the clone comment. “I meant, I didn’t think a full beard was really your _style_ ,” she clarified. “But, you know, it’s _your_ face, give it a try if you want.”

“Maybe something smaller,” Jeremy mused. “A mustache and goatee, perhaps.”

“Ooh, you could try for an Evil Spock beard,” Rachel suggested playfully, indicating on her face how the facial hair would grow.

Jeremy stared at her for a long moment until Rachel sighed. This guy was a real joke-killer, that was for sure. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ward, I didn’t understand what you said just then,” he informed her politely.

“Never mind,” she decided. “How’s your lunch?”

“Delicious,” he judged with unexpected enthusiasm. “A delight for the soul, as well as the palate.”

“It’s tuna, not sole,” Rachel punned, unable to resist.

“The fish was not delighted to be caught, killed, and eaten,” Karl pointed out, also unable to resist.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Karl,” Jeremy replied, completely sincere as far as Rachel could tell. “I forgot how close you are to our piscine friends. Perhaps I should have had the chicken instead.”

Rachel glanced between the two of them, trying to figure out if they were joking with each other, or antagonizing each other, or what. After a moment Karl merely snorted derisively at Jeremy’s comments.

“Um, so, Karl, what other mission research are you going to be doing?” Rachel redirected. “Anything interesting and non-classified?”

“Aside from increasing my capsaicin tolerance?” Karl asked pointedly. Clearly he had not forgotten the delay Rachel had caused in his training program. She looked at him as if to say, ‘Yes, of course.’ “I’m refreshing my knowledge of a certain language,” he replied, carefully vague. “Also I require practice at certain food-related skills.”

That one was _too_ vague for Rachel. “You mean like cooking, or…?”

“I can’t say,” Karl claimed loftily.

“Karl can’t use chopsticks,” Jeremy blabbed. “He keeps snapping them in half.” Karl shot him a look that suggested other things he would like to snap in half as well.

“Oh, well, that’s not so bad,” Rachel tried to tell him. “You know, I used to not be good at them, then this Korean-American friend said that I shouldn’t stress over where to put my fingers and all that, I should just use them however they worked to pick up food. And after that I got much better at them.”

Rachel had always thought this was a nice little story—she had met several people who were intimidated by chopsticks and had passed this advice on to them. But she could see from Karl’s expression it hadn’t impressed him. “That’s like saying it doesn’t matter how you use the scalpel as long as you get the patient open,” he judged harshly.

“Interesting analogy,” Rachel remarked. “Perilously close to brownie territory, but you kept it in the medical realm.”

“Proper utensil technique is essential to blending in to one’s surroundings,” Karl asserted.

Rachel did not comment on how likely the Viking-esque Karl was to blend in if he was really going to China, no matter how adroitly he wielded his chopsticks. “Well, sure, if you say so,” she agreed tactfully. “Obviously you’ve studied it more than I have. There’s probably a whole etiquette involved that I’m not aware of.”

“Yes.” Karl waited a beat, as if expecting her to argue with him. “I suppose your method is sufficient for everyday use,” he finally conceded.

Rachel burst into a grin. “Thank you, Karl!” she told him, trying to sound sincere. She could tell it went against his nature to be gracious when he felt someone else was in the wrong. “It’s probably easy to—“ She was distracted by Jeremy, who had gone very still, only his eyes darting around him. “Jeremy?”

“Dr. Ward, can I get up on the couch?” he asked without looking at her.

“Yes, go ahead,” Rachel allowed cautiously.

Very carefully, Jeremy climbed up on the couch, tucking his feet underneath him. “Can you come sit next to me, please?” he requested tightly.

“Okay, I can do that,” Rachel agreed. She wiped her hands off with a napkin, stood, and scooted between the coffee table and the couch to sit next to him. When he gave her a look she picked her feet up as well and he relaxed a bit, taking her hand. “Do you feel better?” she checked. “You were very careful just now.”

“Yes, thank you, Dr. Ward,” he replied. “I suppose the floor really isn’t covered in rats, is it?” he added hopefully.

“No rats, not even one,” Rachel assured him, patting his hand. “It would be really hard for me to be so calm if I thought there were rats everywhere.”

Jeremy nodded. “But I thought it over, and it really didn’t make sense for your office to be filled with rats. So I thought _maybe_ I was just imagining it.”

“Well, you did very well,” she praised him again.

“What about _me_?” Karl rumbled. “You left _me_ to be eaten by the rats.” He seemed mildly aggravated by this.

Rachel thought Jeremy would have a clever answer to this, perhaps something about Karl escaping on a flying horse or whatever. But instead he just shrugged and replied, “Yes.” Rachel’s eyes flickered over to Karl nervously. He had been remarkably tolerant of Jeremy lately, but there was no need to antagonize him. “The asset is more important than we are,” he went on, in a lecturing, slightly patronizing tone. “You know, the rats weren’t even _real_ , Karl.”

For a moment Karl stared at him with a narrow gaze and Rachel prepared to intervene. Then abruptly Karl shrugged and went back to his lunch, shaking his head slightly. Rachel tried to avoid sighing with relief too obviously. “So, did you finish your lunch?” she asked Jeremy. There were a few potato chips remaining but he hadn’t touched them in a while.

He peered into the box, double-checking its contents. “I guess so,” he replied dubiously. “I’m still kind of hungry but I don’t really want what’s left.”

“What do you think is left?” Rachel asked.

“Well, are they potato chips?” he questioned cautiously. “I _think_ they’re potato chips…”

“You’re right, they are,” Rachel assured him. “It’s okay to be hungry, you didn’t really eat breakfast. At least while I was there.”

This seemed to remind him of something unpleasant and a dyspeptic expression came over his face. “Hmm. Yeah.”

Hurriedly Rachel moved on. “Maybe in a little while you two could find a contained gym and exercise,” she suggested.

“I haven’t been very active today,” Jeremy agreed.

“My doctor said I had to remain under medical observation until two-thirty,” Karl replied flatly and Rachel gave him an unamused look.

“Dr. Ward is your doctor,” Jeremy pointed out in confusion, ruining Karl’s passive-aggressive comment.

“I _know_ ,” he insisted, his tone implying ‘moron’ at the end.

“Dr. Ward’s right here,” Jeremy went on, still sounding uncertain. “Isn’t she?” He looked Rachel up and down, then leaned even closer and sniffed her. “It smells like her. Am I just imagining that?”

“No, I’m right here, it’s me,” Rachel assured him, trying to sound cheerful. “Karl, can you verify that, since you confused him in the first place?”

Now it was Karl’s turn to look peeved, which served him right as far as Rachel was concerned. “Yes,” he rumbled curtly.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Rachel went on, when there was apparently no more forthcoming from him, “maybe I could go with you to the underground gym just in case.” The idea didn’t really appeal to her that much, but maybe if she brought her laptop… “Or,” she added with more enthusiasm, “maybe if Dennis isn’t busy, you could go down to _his_ gym, and he could help if anything goes wrong. Do you feel okay so far, Karl?” she checked.

“Yes.”

“For real? Not just a big, tough He-Man-type of mortality denial?”

Karl blinked at her and rethought his answer. “My chest still itches,” he admitted.

Rachel rewarded him with a smile, not sure if he really considered that a reward. “We can put some more ointment on it,” she decided. “Would you _rather_ stay where I can keep an eye on you?” she checked, just in case.

“No,” he answered unequivocally. She hadn’t thought so.

“Well, plan A, I’ll call Dennis,” Rachel summarized definitively, “and plan B, we’ll all go to the underground gym. Okay?”

“Okay, Dr. Ward,” Jeremy agreed readily. Karl’s expression indicated he felt he had little choice in the matter. Which Rachel didn’t like to think was true; but if he was going to be that way, fine.

“Okay, I’ll call Dennis.” She stood and moved over to her desk, refusing to admit that she was slightly hesitant about asking another favor of the crusty trainer. It never hurt to _ask_ , she told herself as she dialed his number, especially if she was totally prepared—in fact, expecting—to hear the word no.

“ _Dr. Ward_ ,” he greeted gruffly upon answering.

“You can call me Rachel,” she blurted, suddenly aware of the disparity in address. He had been introduced to her as ‘Dennis,’ so that’s what she had always called him.

“ _Did you call just to tell me that?_ ” he asked after a moment.

“Uh, no,” Rachel admitted, flustered.

“ _Good_.”

She cleared her throat and tried to remember her original purpose. “Well, I was wondering if you were going to be in your office for the next couple of hours,” she began, “and could watch Jeremy and Karl while they worked out. Actually, Karl is pretty good about watching Jeremy, but they probably shouldn’t be totally unsupervised, and I gave Karl some inoculations a little while ago and he had an allergic reaction to one, just a rash but someone really ought to be keeping an eye on him in case his throat swells shut or something, which I don’t think is that likely, but still—“ She was starting to get distracted by Jeremy and Karl, who were discussing something with agitation. “Oh, hold on a second, Dennis,” she interrupted herself, putting the phone against her shoulder to listen to them.

“—green _or_ blue, can’t remember the last time I took either, cognitive degrade, sensory withdrawal—“ Jeremy was hissing at Karl.

“Don’t have to do that anymore, don’t you remember viraling out, when you got sick—“ Karl told him in return. Or at least, that was what it sounded like to Rachel; they were talking in such low voices she couldn’t really be sure. Then Karl noticed her listening and shut up.

“Problem, guys?” Rachel asked. Karl gave her an impenetrable look, but Jeremy still seemed upset and he popped to his feet.

“Dr. Ward, you have extra chems here, right?” he asked urgently, approaching her.

“Stop talking about it, it’s classified,” Karl ordered from the background.

“Chems? You mean chemicals? Like drugs?” she asked, totally mystified. She hoped he hadn’t jumped into the persona of a drug addict—inspired by the vitamin-pilfering photographer, perhaps.

“Blues and greens, program chems,” Jeremy babbled, increasingly frustrated. “You’re a program doctor, you must have some around—“

“Jeremy,” Karl warned, coming up behind him.

“Honey, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rachel tried to tell him soothingly. “You don’t _have_ any meds. Well, except for the pill you have to take for your snakebite, but it’s not time for that yet—“ This was clearly not the answer Jeremy was looking for.

“Dennis is talking to you,” Karl pointed out, and Rachel belatedly remembered the phone she held.

“Hey, Dennis,” she said apologetically into it. “Sorry about that, Jeremy’s upset about something, I don’t—“

“ _Can I get a word in here?!_ ” Dennis demanded, a bit sharply Rachel thought.

“Oh, sure.”

“ _Let me talk to Green_.”

With a shrug Rachel handed her cell phone to Jeremy. “It’s Dennis, do you remember Dennis?” she checked.

He snatched the phone eagerly. “Yes, of course. Dennis, do you have extra greens and blues? I don’t know what happened to my program kit and I can’t—“ He stopped as Dennis forcefully interrupted him. “Oh. I don’t remember that—“ He winced slightly and Rachel raised an eyebrow, wondering what Dennis was saying to him. After a moment Jeremy pulled the phone away and handed it back to her. “Er, sorry about that, Dr. Ward,” he told her. “I saw that thing about needing chems in a movie, and I thought it was real.”

As lies went, it was pretty transparent; and Rachel wasn’t sure he’d even fully snapped out of the delusion yet. But given that there was no mention of regular medication in any of her agents’ files, Rachel had a feeling that whatever this was, it didn’t apply anymore, and she wasn’t supposed to know about it.

“Oh, okay,” she replied. Then she decided it was in her own best interest to make her acceptance of the lie a _little_ more convincing than Jeremy’s telling of it. “Hey, you have to be careful, remember?” she chided him lightly. “You know, you can’t go around demanding things and grabbing phones from people. Someone might think you’re going to do something bad.” She hoped she wasn’t laying it on too thick; he still seemed slightly agitated and distracted, though, so she presumed he was still thinking about his ‘chems,’ and not her admonishment of him.

“Yes, you’re right, Dr. Ward,” he agreed quickly. “Um, Dennis wanted to talk to you.”

Oh right. “Hey, Dennis,” she said into the phone. “Never a dull moment, right?”

“ _You can send those two lunkheads down here_ ,” Dennis told her off-hand. “ _I’ll give ‘em a workout. How long? Two hours?_ ” He sounded like he was planning quite a challenge for them.

Rachel glanced at her watch. “Yeah, a couple hours would be good,” she agreed. She tried not to sound too excited about two hours of worry-free peace and quiet. “Uh, you know, same as yesterday, Jeremy’s still having his delusions but he’s being _very careful_ today,” she added, giving Jeremy a pointed look. He nodded quickly.

“ _I remember_ ,” Dennis assured her. Then he abruptly hung up.

“Okay.” Rachel put her phone away and faced Karl and Jeremy sternly. “You guys can go down to Dennis’s gym and work out for a while,” she informed them, on the off chance this wasn’t clear. “Do you remember where it is?”

“Yes, Dr. Ward.”

“Yes.”

“Karl, can you get Jeremy there by yourself?” she asked. “Do you need me to come along?”

“Yes, and no,” he answered minimally.

“Good. Do not let him wander off,” she instructed. “And when you’re done, either walk him back up here, or call me to come get him.”

“I understand,” Karl replied steadily.

She turned to Jeremy, who had calmed down from his earlier agitation and was now waiting aimlessly in the middle of the room. At the sound of his name he snapped his attention to her. “You’re going to _be careful_ ,” she reminded him. “Because you’re sick, and having hallucinations. Say it back.”

“I’m having hallucinations, so I’m going to be very careful about what I do,” he improvised. “Thank you for letting me go work out, Dr. Ward.”

He seemed normal enough at the moment, which was a great relief to her. “Okay, have a nice time,” she told them. “Oh wait. Karl!” With great restraint he stopped and turned back around to face her. “If _you_ start to feel weird, stop and tell Dennis. Take the ointment with you, apply as needed.” A blink was her only acknowledgement. Then he and Jeremy walked out the door.

The feed from the security monitors showed Karl and Jeremy successfully entering Dennis’s office in the basement, with only the occasional delay along the way due to Jeremy’s confusion and hesitation. Karl dealt with these by merely taking his arm and pulling him along, a less sensitive approach than Rachel usually took but it seemed to do the trick, and it didn’t upset Jeremy. Maybe she should remember that, she told herself. Though, she really didn’t mind trying to reason with him, as long as there wasn’t an emergency.

Security monitoring did not follow them _into_ Dennis’s gym, though. Rachel hoped by this point she was beginning to learn which questions needed to be asked no matter what the consequences, and which _didn’t_ really need to be asked; and the question of why she couldn’t watch a feed from Dennis’s gym fell into the latter category, she felt. As long as _someone_ was watching it.

And that was one less thing to distract her as she worked on her reports—about Jeremy’s latest delusions and Karl’s allergic reaction. Everything had to be thoroughly documented, which she really didn’t mind—she always found her notes helpful later, the more complete the better, which _almost_ made the act of writing them not a pain. And there were some new memos to read, some articles of supposed interest forwarded to her by Dr. Kedar, Jenny’s latest idea for organizing the medical supplies in the exam room. Jenny was very organized. Rachel appreciated that. As far as she was concerned Jenny could organize her own files and notebooks and office supplies however she wanted; but the medical supplies in the exam room needed to stay where Rachel remembered them being, because in an emergency, she wasn’t going to stop and consult a color-coded diagram before she could find bandages or forceps. Jenny’s argument that _she_ would likely be the one grabbing stuff did not hold merit with Rachel, because she didn’t want to be one of those doctors who was totally dependent on her nurse and couldn’t find so much as a pair of gloves without her help. She wrote several drafts of an email trying to convey her sentiments in a professional, firm yet polite way.

Suddenly her phone rang. “ _Dr. Ward, we’re bringing one of your agents to your exam room now_ ,” a security monitor began with disconcerting calmness. “ _Minor injuries, possible broken arm_.”

Rachel immediately sprang up and went into the outer office where Jenny was. “Minor injuries, broken arm,” she repeated and Jenny hurried to prepare the exam room. “Is it Jeremy?” she asked worriedly.

“ _Negative_ ,” the monitor said, and Rachel felt a guilt tinge of relief. “ _The agent is Min Lee_.”

Not the most pleasant person to deal with when injured, Rachel thought to herself, stifling a sigh. “What happened?”

“ _Accident on one of the training courses_ ,” the monitor explained. “ _The rock climbing wall, I think. Guards are accompanying her, they report she’s ‘agitated.’_ ”

“Understood,” Rachel replied. She walked into the exam room, caught Jenny’s eye, and pointed to the drawer of syringes loaded with sedative. She nodded and laid a couple out. “ETA?”

“ _They’re approaching your office now_ ,” the monitor told her, and Rachel saw them through the glass of the doors.

“Okay, thanks,” she acknowledged, hanging up. “Here she comes,” she added to Jenny as the doors to the outer office opened.

Now a normal person might easily become agitated after falling off a rock climbing wall and breaking an arm. (Of course a normal person would’ve been wearing a safety harness and wouldn’t have broken anything.) But Min wasn’t upset because she was in pain. She was upset because she sensed a conspiracy in everything.

“—don’t want me going on my new mission, deliberately sabotaged that handhold, that’s why no one was around—“ she was saying as she came through the door, escorted by two guards. They were standing behind her and slightly to either side, trying to herd her in the right direction without actually touching her. Sometimes the agents reacted badly to physical contact.

And sometimes they didn’t. “Min, are you okay?” Rachel asked in concern, putting her arm around her shoulder. “What happened?” She guided her gently into the exam room, the guards following close behind.

“Someone pushed me off the rock climbing wall!” she accused.

“Did you break your arm?” Rachel questioned.

Min’s gaze sharpened on her. “How did you know that?” she demanded suspiciously.

“You’re holding that arm close to you, and it looks bruised,” Rachel pointed out. “Can we cut this sleeve away? I need to examine your arm. Can Jenny help you take off your shirt and shorts?” Rachel signaled to the guards, both male, to turn around, then glared at them until they did so. Min didn’t care, but for Rachel it was the principle of the thing.

“The handhold had been _loosened_ ,” Min insisted as Rachel examined her. “It wobbled and broke off when I grabbed it! Someone doesn’t want me to go on my new—“

“Min, I need you to focus on your arm right now,” Rachel told her. “Does this hurt here?”

“No,” Min claimed. “And then when I fell—“

“Here?”

“Minor pain. Two,” she described hastily. “No one came! When I fell. I just laid there until—“

“Did you hit your head?” Rachel interrupted, gently probing through her hair.

“No. I don’t think so,” Min hedged.

“But you said you just laid there,” Rachel countered. “Why didn’t you get up right away?”

Min looked at her as if she didn’t think Rachel had been listening. “Well, I was just waiting to see what would happen,” Min claimed. “If someone was watching from a distance, maybe they would think I was dead and leave—“

Rachel made a tsking noise. “How long did you lay there? You might have done more damage.”

“Well, I didn’t want them to realize I was still alive!” Min told her. “Because I’m researching this new mission, it’s _very_ important—“

“Then you shouldn’t jeopardize it by not taking care of yourself,” Rachel chided. “And climb using the safety harness next time.”

“How did you know I was climbing without it?” Min wanted to know, wary.

Rachel gave her a look. “Min, you _fell_ ,” she pointed out. “If you’d been wearing the safety harness you wouldn’t have fallen. Besides, you never wear the safety harness, you think it will cut off your circulation.”

“That’s right,” Min agreed emphatically. “And somebody knew that! So they loosened the handhold instead.” She began to give Rachel a suspicious look.

“Do not look at me that way,” Rachel told her, carefully bandaging a scrape. It would probably be healed before tomorrow, but Rachel felt she couldn’t just leave it. “ _Everybody_ knows you don’t use the safety harness.”

Min did not like this refutation of her theory. “Well, is my arm broken or not?” she asked with slight petulance.

“I don’t think so,” Rachel judged. “Maybe a hairline fracture. I’d like to just put it in a sling and see how it feels tomorrow. What would you think of that?”

“Shouldn’t you x-ray it?” Min shot back. “Don’t you want me to see the x-rays?”

Rachel sighed. “Min, you know I don’t like giving you too many x-rays,” she reminded the woman. “Why is that?”

“X-rays can be harmful,” Min recalled dutifully. This didn’t pacify her for long, though. “But nobody came for twenty-seven minutes!” she told Rachel.

She was not impressed. “You just laid there for nearly half an hour? With your arm bent some weird way? I am going to send you back to basic injury self-care,” she judged.

“But no one came!” Min repeated. “I had to get up and walk inside by myself.”

Another sort of person might have been using this neglect to get sympathy; but the agents didn’t seek out sympathy, or have much use for it if offered. To Min this was just further proof that someone was out to get her, that they’d left her to die on one of the training courses.

“Which training course were you on?” Rachel asked as she slipped the woman’s arm into a sling. “The old one on the other side of those trees? The one you always use?” she added, before she could be accused of knowing too much. Min’s expression said she was correct. “The one you use because your research said it received less surveillance than the other courses?”

“Yes,” Min replied steadfastly.

“Well then, _yeah_ , it’s gonna take people longer to realize something’s wrong out there,” Rachel connected for her. “Although, granted, twenty-seven minutes seems excessive,” she was finally forced to agree.

“Exactly!” Min said in triumph.

“I will make sure people are aware of it,” Rachel promised, vague but sincere. “But _you_ better decide what you want— _more_ surveillance here, or _less_?” Min’s face fell as she considered the implications of this. “Now, can I trust you not to use your arm much until tomorrow, or should I—“

Rachel was interrupted by excited barking from her outer office—or rather, a human imitating a dog barking. Which could only mean one thing.

“What’s _that_?” Min demanded, hackles up again.

Rachel stepped towards the door but it opened before she could get there and Jeremy bounded in on all fours, barking joyfully when he saw her. Karl trailed behind, looking quite the martyr. The guards didn’t know what to make of either one, though clearly an agent who thought he was a dog fell outside the range of normal, acceptable behaviors and they readied themselves to intervene. Min didn’t like it much either and jumped up on the exam table, hissing at Jeremy like an angry cat.

Rachel tried to get between them. “Jeremy, calm down. Min, get down from there, he’s just sick. Jeremy, would you hush—Don’t even _think_ about tranqing anyone!” she ordered the two guards, who were most certainly thinking about it.

Then Jenny stepped in front of Jeremy. “Jeremy, get down!” she told him forcefully when he tried to jump on her. “You are being a naughty dog! Naughty!” Jeremy paused on all fours, looking up at her uncertainly. “Go to the corner. Go on, lie down!” she instructed, pointing. Jeremy whined in protest, but Jenny was implacable in her pointing, so he turned and trudged to the corner, tail (metaphorically) drooping. She turned to glare at Min next, who quickly sat back down on the exam table. Then Jenny narrowed her eyes at Karl.

“I’ll wait out here,” he decided, stepping back into the outer office.

“Thank you, Jenny,” Rachel told her briskly. It was important to have an assistant who could handle the agents, even when they thought they were dogs or mentioned putting her in a blender. Rachel thought she remembered that Jenny’s family raised some breed of large dog. Fitting. “As you were, show’s over,” she remarked to the guards, who were still looking apprehensively between the two agents. Jeremy gave them a pleading, self-pitying gaze over his shoulder.

“Okay, Min, we were talking about your arm,” she reminded the agent.

“Oh, right,” Min replied. She seemed far more interested in staring at Jeremy in the corner. “I heard he was sick.”

“Yes, but he’s not contagious,” Rachel assured her quickly, “and it’s just temporary.”

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Jenny advised, turning her back on Jeremy pointedly. “He’s been naughty.” Min nodded slowly, as if thinking that _she_ didn’t want to get on that list.

“So you will keep your arm in this sling,” Rachel reiterated, gaining Min’s attention again, “and you will not use it much. You will come back to see me tomorrow morning at… nine?” She glanced at Jenny, who nodded that her schedule was clear then. “And if it hurts more before then, you will call me or another doctor. Any problem with that?” Min had none. “Oh, and put some ice packs on those bruises.” Jenny was already putting some in a bag for her. “Now let me check your eyes, and then you can put on some scrubs and go back to your room.”

“What’s Jeremy sick with?” Min wanted to know. At the sound of his name Jeremy looked up with interest, then put his head back down when no one else looked at him. “Is he getting an upgrade? Do we _all_ have to?” Her tone indicated that she didn’t consider the ability to personify animals to be much of an asset.

“No, he’s just having a bad reaction to some medication,” Rachel told her briskly. “He’ll be back to normal in a couple days. Any other pain, dizziness, nausea?”

“No,” Min replied. Rachel and Jenny helped her to dress again and got her on her feet. “I can get back to my room on my own,” she insisted, when the guards straightened up as if to accompany her.

“I would like it if you let them go with you,” Rachel suggested to her. “In case you get dizzy or something.”

“Well, alright,” Min allowed grudgingly. “They better not get too close, though!”

“I’m sure they won’t,” Rachel calmed her. “Nine tomorrow morning!”

“I’ll remember,” Min insisted. Then she walked out, the guards trailing behind her.

Rachel let out a breath. “Well, that wasn’t too bad,” she commented to Jenny. “I thought she’d be more upset.”

“Lying on the ground for twenty-seven minutes gives you plenty of time to reflect,” Jenny replied dryly as she cleaned up.

“Yeah, that needs to be addressed,” Rachel sighed. “Hey, good work with Jer—er, Marmaduke,” she added, not wanting to say his name and thus attract his attention.

“Well, you just have to remember who the alpha is,” Jenny advised sagely.

“Always important,” Rachel agreed. She washed her hands, then turned to give Jeremy a stern look. He lifted his head hopefully and whined a little. “Alright, buster, you can come into my office now,” she allowed, patting his head. She leaned out the exam room door. “Karl? Come in here, I want to talk to you.”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything,” Karl insisted as he walked through to her office. “ _He_ turned into a dog on the third floor.”

Jeremy barked and skipped around Rachel’s office, so thrilled to be in her good graces again that she had to smile. Rachel sat down on the couch and Jeremy immediately bounded up on it to curl up in her lap. “No, I just wanted to know how you felt,” she assured Karl. “No other allergy symptoms? How’s the rash?”

“Smaller,” Karl claimed. He tried to sit in a chair and Jeremy snarled at him, so he decided to stand a little farther away. “No other reactions.”

“Good. Come back and see me tomorrow at eleven,” Rachel instructed. “Or, call me or someone else immediately if you notice anything new or don’t feel well.” Karl gazed at her in that impassive way she had learned to take as acknowledgement. “So you guys had a good workout with Dennis? How was Jeremy?”

Karl hesitated, which Rachel wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Some of the activities were difficult for him because he was trying to be careful,” he explained. Rachel was shocked by his tone, which was almost charitable. He seemed to sense this and immediately became disdainful again. “Dennis wasn’t happy with him.”

Rachel imagined Dennis generally being unhappy with _everyone_. “Did Jeremy get upset?” she wanted to know. “Turning into a dog and jumping around like that isn’t being very careful.” She addressed this more to Jeremy, who promptly licked her hand.

“He was tired,” Karl claimed. “Dennis is very thorough with workouts.” He looked a little tired himself, now that she thought about it—not standing quite as straight and still as he normally would have. You had to be impressed with any exercise program that could tire out two (more or less) healthy agents.

“Well, thanks a lot for looking after him, Karl,” Rachel told him. “I know you have some more mission prep to take care of, so you can go now if you want,” she allowed.

“Well, I have a whole week now,” he said flatly, but she decided to take the dig as a friendly one. He turned to leave.

“Eleven tomorrow,” she reminded him as he disappeared out the door. “Boy, we have a full morning tomorrow, don’t we?” she added to Jeremy, who appeared to be asleep on her lap. “Oh no you don’t,” she threatened, shaking him until he roused enough for her to escape. He looked at her blearily from the couch cushions. “Okay, you can go back to sleep for now,” she told him, and his eyes drooped shut. She had some reports to write and amend, after all.

About an hour later she had to wake him up. “Jeremy. Jeremy? Jeremy!” He sat up suddenly, instantly alert, and Rachel froze for a moment, waiting to see how he would react. It took him a few seconds to get his bearings; finally he turned slowly to look at Rachel. “Are you awake now?” she asked him. “Sorry to startle you. Are you still a dog?”

He still seemed a bit disoriented, which might be normal for someone else but was a little odd for him. “Was I a dog?” he finally asked in confusion.

“Uh-huh. Do you remember working out with Karl and Dennis?”

He thought back. “I was fighting in the Revolutionary War with Karl and Dennis,” he claimed fuzzily.

“A deadly combination,” Rachel noted. “I hope you were on _our_ side.”

“Or maybe I was just at the grocery store with Karl and Dennis,” Jeremy corrected himself.

“Still deadly,” Rachel judged dryly. “Hope you didn’t have to wait in line too long, that always makes _me_ cranky.”

“I was supposed to get a frozen pizza,” Jeremy went on, and Rachel wasn’t sure if he was relating a dream or a delusion now, “and there were _so many_ choices, I just didn’t know which one to get. And I knew Evie had _told_ me which one, but I didn’t remember, and if I brought the wrong one she’d be mad. And then I heard a baby crying somewhere in the store and I just _knew_ it was Jake—“ He stopped and rubbed his face tiredly, as though he’d only gotten a fraction of his needed sleep.

“Who’s Evie?” Rachel wanted to know. “And Jake?” She couldn’t imagine a mission that involved a baby, or such prosaic domestic activities as a spat over frozen pizza.

“Hmm?” Jeremy asked, looking up at her.

“Evie and Jake, the baby.”

Jeremy blinked, then really tried to think of the answer. “No idea,” he concluded, not sounding terribly concerned with his lack of knowledge.

Rachel found it frustrating, though. “Another movie plot?” she guessed, a bit sarcastically. “I didn’t realize you guys were such film buffs.” Okay, really, if this _was_ about a mission, the fewer details she knew, the better. It was just that when he talked about these things, they seemed so real to him, and they made her realize how little she knew about him and what he’d been through. What if Evie was a wife he’d left behind, and Jake his son? Would someone like Dennis know, since he’d been with the program for so long? But of course there was no way Dennis, or anyone else, would tell her something like that about Jeremy’s past, something Jeremy himself probably didn’t even remember—

“Dr. Ward?” Rachel realized she’d just been staring at him and shook herself. “Could I get a couple aspirin? I’m kinda hungover, I think,” he admitted sheepishly.

She glanced at her watch and realized it was time for his last antivenom pill, so she went to retrieve it. “Were you up late last night drinking beer with Karl and Dennis?” she teased as she brought it to him with some water. And then, because she couldn’t stomach giving medication under false pretenses, she added, “This is your antivenom pill. Last one.”

Jeremy took it and swallowed it down without hesitation. “Thanks, hon,” he told her, and Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Dennis has a h—l of a tolerance for an old guy,” he went on, slightly abashed. “Me and Karl just can’t keep up with him.” He leaned back against the couch with a sigh.

“Well, you shouldn’t try,” Rachel admonished. “Good thing you don’t have to go to work today.” He grunted an acknowledgement, still rubbing his forehead. She put her hand on it to check for fever, and he slid his eyes over to her and gave her a little half-smile, like he was teasing her, just a little bit, for worrying about him. It was an expression that was shockingly normal, and deeply intimate.

“Um, do you have a headache?” she asked awkwardly, pulling back slightly from him. It wasn’t that his comfortable proximity bothered her—just the opposite. She thought she could get used to it easily—too easily.

“Nah,” he claimed about the headache. “Just a little cotton-headed.” He sat up, then pushed himself to his feet. “I’m just gonna splash some water on my face, that’ll wake me up.” He froze before taking a step, his posture becoming uncertain. “Is that okay?” he asked her.

“It’s fine,” Rachel assured him, guiltily relieved that he was turning back into the agent again. But then he straightened back up, gave her a wink, and strolled into the bathroom. Now Rachel was the one rubbing her face tiredly—it was just hard to see him behaving so much like an ordinary, decent person, she told herself, when any minute he was going to revert to a completely extraordinary person who could do a lot of dangerous things and wasn’t able to form normal, healthy relationships. Especially when that ordinary, decent person seemed to think he had a relationship with _her_.

Rachel went back to her desk quickly and tried to find things to be busy with. She could give him the crayons for a while, then it would be time to put him in his room for the night. Tomorrow she would bring a deck of cards, maybe a checkers set.

The bathroom door opened. “Better already,” Jeremy claimed breezily. He flashed her a charming grin that Rachel responded to without thinking. He leaned nonchalantly in the doorway. “So, I thought maybe I would clean out the gutters today,” he told her. “Hey, don’t get too excited, it’s not our anniversary or anything,” he added in a joking tone. “But I know that’s been on the list for a while, so…”

Rachel could barely stand this delirium. It would be so cruel when it was yanked away. “Maybe—maybe you should just relax instead,” she suggested hesitantly. “Sit down, do some drawing. Uh, you had a rough night.”

He shrugged this off, but did at least go back to the couch. “Eh, the dog had it worse than me,” he insisted. “I didn’t think he would ever stop puking up those eggs, poor little guy. Maybe that’ll teach him to stay away from the groceries, though.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed, frowning as his story changed. “Gross. It was nice of you to sit up with him,” she added.

“Well, you were on call, so what else did I have to do?” he asked modestly. “Hey, have you been thinking about a name for him?” He was sketching idly now. “I know you like the name Jeremy, but I think it’s weird to give animals human names. We should give him a pet-only name. Like, hmm, Snuffy.” He paused suddenly and Rachel watched him carefully. After a moment he put the crayon down and seemed to fold up into himself. “That brought up a lot of strange images,” he admitted.

Rachel gave him a minute to process them. “Jeremy?” she tried, and he looked up promptly, his eyes curious but his face much less expressive. “Where do you think we are?”

“We’re in your office, Dr. Ward,” he answered simply, and his tone and cadence were back to the way she remembered him. So much for the beer-drinking suburbanite with his clogged gutters and sick puppy. Rachel was surprised to find she didn’t miss him as much as she’d thought she would—it was nice to have the Jeremy she knew back. Comforting. Then he frowned slightly. “Have I been doing bad things?” he asked softly.

“No, not at all,” Rachel hastened to assure him. “What makes you think that?”

“Well… I couldn’t remember much that seemed like it could really happen,” he admitted. “But I thought I remembered someone saying I was bad.”

“Well, you thought you were a dog for a while,” Rachel explained, “and you interrupted me with a patient and were very excitable, and Jenny had to send you to the corner.”

Jeremy took this description in stride. “Oh.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> That's all for Agent and Doctor, until I finish this story, which I really hope to do. I hope you've enjoyed it.


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